Tunisia this week marked the one-year anniversary of a brutal terrorist attack in the resort town of Sousse, where 38 beachgoers were killed. The anniversary prompted a spate of articles in the international press noting Tunisia’s continuing terror threat. Yet a recent visit to Tunisia underscored that Tunisians, perhaps more so than Americans or Europeans, have moved on from Sousse.

Tunisia’s terror threat: A Western fixation?

One year after the Sousse attack, the United Kingdom and Germany, whose citizens once made up the largest blocs of tourists in Tunisia, continue to advise against “all but essential travel” to Tunisia. The advice from the United States and France is slightly less alarming—urging their citizens to be vigilant and avoid crowds, particularly in tourist areas. From my experience this month, it appears Americans and Europeans are heeding their governments’ advice.

Over a six-day trip that took me all around greater Tunis, the only place I saw a tourist was on Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef’s Instagram. My hotel pool, a beautiful winding oasis complete with lifeguard and shuttered bar, was empty save for a few Tunisians doing exercise routines. The restaurants and cafés that were open were full—of Tunisians enjoying iftar. My anecdotal experience is confirmed by reports that Tunisia has failed to resuscitate its tourism industry since the Sousse attack.

The government is walking a difficult line between projecting a welcoming atmosphere and making it clear that Tunisia takes the security of its citizens and its visitors seriously. While I was there, President Beji Caid Essebsi extended the state of emergency for another month, although some of my interlocutors speculated that this was driven more by political motives than security fears.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the stepped-up security presence. Every car approaching my hotel (an American chain) was searched before it was allowed to pass the gates. My taxi driver was interrogated during each of our visits to government buildings. And when I took a casual evening stroll down the chic La Marsa boardwalk, I was taken aback by officers brandishing assault rifles.

For Tunisians, it’s the economy

Given the international focus on Tunisia’s looming jihadi threat and the visible attempts by the government to counter that threat, you would expect Tunisians to be obsessed with security issues. Yet during the more than 20 meetings I held with government officials, politicians, journalists, and civil society activists, only one Tunisian named security as her top concern. And she was clear that it is not terrorist attacks that worry her most, but rather Tunisia’s inability to enact necessary security sector reforms that would not only help keep terrorists at bay, but would also help reassure investors and improve the country’s human rights climate.

Instead of security, almost every Tunisian with whom I met said they believe Tunisia’s biggest challenges are economic—enacting economic reforms, attracting foreign investors, addressing youth unemployment. Tunisia’s currency, the dinar, fell to a record low against the dollar and euro last week, and that fact came up far more often in conversation than the Sousse anniversary or the looming ISIS threat discussed so often in the international press. Unless I raised it, the security situation almost never came up in my conversations at all.

To be clear, Tunisians, particularly those outside the capital, are deeply concerned about the jihadi threat. The Tunisian field office of the International Crisis Group recently published a report emphasizing the urgent need for a national strategy to counter extremism. However, many Tunisians are far more focused on the dangers of economic and political instability than on the prospect of another terrorist attack on their soil. And that is a good thing.

Tunisia’s terror threat is not unique

Analysts are right to point out that Tunisia has yet to adequately address its terror problem, often failing to acknowledge its domestic roots, as I have pointed out. But Tunisians increasingly recognize that successfully tackling this deep-seated problem requires improving the economy—both structurally, through well-understood reforms, and practically, by dramatically increasing foreign investment and exports and returning tourists to the beautiful but empty resorts, beaches, and boulevards.

Their challenge in reviving tourism is compounded by the dire travel warnings issued by European governments. Yes, visitors to and residents of Tunisia face the risk of mass violence and terrorism, but unfortunately that danger is hardly unique. I am writing this piece during a layover in the Brussels airport, itself the recent target of a horrific attack. I live less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol and work less than a mile from the White House. Who is to say that I am safer staying home than touring around Tunisia—or Brussels or Paris or Tel Aviv or Orlando.

As a Washingtonian, I don’t spend my days worrying about security; I trust that my government and our security apparatus are well equipped to protect me. Clearly, the Tunisian security forces are not yet as professional or effective as their American counterparts, and its neighborhood is a far more dangerous one. But if Western tourists and foreign investors abandon Tunisia, we are only helping the terrorists.

Tunisia needs more visitors and more investors, and attracting them will require the sustained engagement of the international community. The U.K. and Germany should work with Tunis to address remaining security deficits and heed appeals by Tunisian officials to tone down their warning language. As the attack on Istanbul’s airport has shown, travel warnings are often unreliable. Even after Tuesday’s attack, the U.K. warns its citizens, “It’s generally safe to travel [to Turkey] but you should take additional safety precautions. You should be alert to your surroundings and remain vigilant in crowded places popular with tourists.” Refusing to lower Tunisia’s travel warning, in contrast, seems absurd.

The Tunisian government should also do more to restore confidence in European travelers that Tunisia is an attractive, convenient destination. Advertising campaigns are a good first step. Tunisian tourism board members and security officials should also invite European officials to visit Tunisia and should provide detailed briefings to European government and tourism industry officials on security measures in place at popular tourist areas. Most importantly, Tunisian leaders must recognize that they will not adequately address the security situation without improving the economy.

My advice? Go to Tunisia: enjoy the beautiful beaches, eat the delicious food, inject some of your cash into the Tunisian economy. But be respectful and be vigilant, just as you would be at home.

Authors

Tunisia this week marked the one-year anniversary of a brutal terrorist attack in the resort town of Sousse, where 38 beachgoers were killed. The anniversary prompted a spate of articles in the international press noting Tunisia’s continuing terror threat. Yet a recent visit to Tunisia underscored that Tunisians, perhaps more so than Americans or Europeans, have moved on from Sousse.

Tunisia’s terror threat: A Western fixation?

One year after the Sousse attack, the United Kingdom and Germany, whose citizens once made up the largest blocs of tourists in Tunisia, continue to advise against “all but essential travel” to Tunisia. The advice from the United States and France is slightly less alarming—urging their citizens to be vigilant and avoid crowds, particularly in tourist areas. From my experience this month, it appears Americans and Europeans are heeding their governments’ advice.

Over a six-day trip that took me all around greater Tunis, the only place I saw a tourist was on Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef’s Instagram. My hotel pool, a beautiful winding oasis complete with lifeguard and shuttered bar, was empty save for a few Tunisians doing exercise routines. The restaurants and cafés that were open were full—of Tunisians enjoying iftar. My anecdotal experience is confirmed by reports that Tunisia has failed to resuscitate its tourism industry since the Sousse attack.

The government is walking a difficult line between projecting a welcoming atmosphere and making it clear that Tunisia takes the security of its citizens and its visitors seriously. While I was there, President Beji Caid Essebsi extended the state of emergency for another month, although some of my interlocutors speculated that this was driven more by political motives than security fears.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the stepped-up security presence. Every car approaching my hotel (an American chain) was searched before it was allowed to pass the gates. My taxi driver was interrogated during each of our visits to government buildings. And when I took a casual evening stroll down the chic La Marsa boardwalk, I was taken aback by officers brandishing assault rifles.

For Tunisians, it’s the economy

Given the international focus on Tunisia’s looming jihadi threat and the visible attempts by the government to counter that threat, you would expect Tunisians to be obsessed with security issues. Yet during the more than 20 meetings I held with government officials, politicians, journalists, and civil society activists, only one Tunisian named security as her top concern. And she was clear that it is not terrorist attacks that worry her most, but rather Tunisia’s inability to enact necessary security sector reforms that would not only help keep terrorists at bay, but would also help reassure investors and improve the country’s human rights climate.

Instead of security, almost every Tunisian with whom I met said they believe Tunisia’s biggest challenges are economic—enacting economic reforms, attracting foreign investors, addressing youth unemployment. Tunisia’s currency, the dinar, fell to a record low against the dollar and euro last week, and that fact came up far more often in conversation than the Sousse anniversary or the looming ISIS threat discussed so often in the international press. Unless I raised it, the security situation almost never came up in my conversations at all.

To be clear, Tunisians, particularly those outside the capital, are deeply concerned about the jihadi threat. The Tunisian field office of the International Crisis Group recently published a report emphasizing the urgent need for a national strategy to counter extremism. However, many Tunisians are far more focused on the dangers of economic and political instability than on the prospect of another terrorist attack on their soil. And that is a good thing.

Tunisia’s terror threat is not unique

Analysts are right to point out that Tunisia has yet to adequately address its terror problem, often failing to acknowledge its domestic roots, as I have pointed out. But Tunisians increasingly recognize that successfully tackling this deep-seated problem requires improving the economy—both structurally, through well-understood reforms, and practically, by dramatically increasing foreign investment and exports and returning tourists to the beautiful but empty resorts, beaches, and boulevards.

Their challenge in reviving tourism is compounded by the dire travel warnings issued by European governments. Yes, visitors to and residents of Tunisia face the risk of mass violence and terrorism, but unfortunately that danger is hardly unique. I am writing this piece during a layover in the Brussels airport, itself the recent target of a horrific attack. I live less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol and work less than a mile from the White House. Who is to say that I am safer staying home than touring around Tunisia—or Brussels or Paris or Tel Aviv or Orlando.

As a Washingtonian, I don’t spend my days worrying about security; I trust that my government and our security apparatus are well equipped to protect me. Clearly, the Tunisian security forces are not yet as professional or effective as their American counterparts, and its neighborhood is a far more dangerous one. But if Western tourists and foreign investors abandon Tunisia, we are only helping the terrorists.

Tunisia needs more visitors and more investors, and attracting them will require the sustained engagement of the international community. The U.K. and Germany should work with Tunis to address remaining security deficits and heed appeals by Tunisian officials to tone down their warning language. As the attack on Istanbul’s airport has shown, travel warnings are often unreliable. Even after Tuesday’s attack, the U.K. warns its citizens, “It’s generally safe to travel [to Turkey] but you should take additional safety precautions. You should be alert to your surroundings and remain vigilant in crowded places popular with tourists.” Refusing to lower Tunisia’s travel warning, in contrast, seems absurd.

The Tunisian government should also do more to restore confidence in European travelers that Tunisia is an attractive, convenient destination. Advertising campaigns are a good first step. Tunisian tourism board members and security officials should also invite European officials to visit Tunisia and should provide detailed briefings to European government and tourism industry officials on security measures in place at popular tourist areas. Most importantly, Tunisian leaders must recognize that they will not adequately address the security situation without improving the economy.

My advice? Go to Tunisia: enjoy the beautiful beaches, eat the delicious food, inject some of your cash into the Tunisian economy. But be respectful and be vigilant, just as you would be at home.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2016/05/31-us-allies-japan-middle-east-sachs?rssid=trip+reports{FD61516C-6FBF-4516-BA3B-21D8D2427798}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/156460403/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Whose-side-are-you-on-Alliance-credibility-in-the-Middle-East-and-JapanWhose side are you on? Alliance credibility in the Middle East and Japan

Last week, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and pay tribute at the Peace Memorial there. It was a remarkable spectacle, with the leaders of the enemies-turned-allies at the most sensitive site of their relationship. The occasion also touched on a crucial question of U.S. foreign policy and of the world order: the U.S. alliance system that emerged after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The visit came at a time when many U.S. allies question the future and durability of these alliances. The U.S. presidential election presents a unique threat to the alliance system, with a major political party about to nominate a candidate openly hostile to U.S. alliances. Donald Trump has suggested that the United States might lift the security umbrella over Japan and South Korea, and that he finds it perfectly acceptable that these allies may arm themselves with nuclear weapons as an alternative defense. Beyond Trump, U.S. politics are exerting an inward pull on politicians, and they are obliging. The president's visit also follows years of strains to U.S. alliances elsewhere—in the Middle East—and his administration openly questions the depth of U.S. involvement required to maintain some of its Middle Eastern partnerships.

I visited Japan last month for discussions on Middle Eastern affairs—and U.S. and Japanese involvement in them—with Japanese officials, scholars, and journalists. It was a view from one end of the U.S. pivot to Asia (or the "rebalance") to another; from the region ripe for deeper U.S. investment to that in which the administration hoped invest less (and which stubbornly refused to be divested from). I was not a Japan expert before the trip, nor am I now, but it was valuable for me to hear how the Japanese I met looked to, and what they learned from, U.S. involvement in a region I know slightly better, in Asia's southwest.

In the Middle East, many now complain that the United States has lost credibility as an ally. After 30 years of supporting Mubarak, the refrain goes, the United States abandoned him in a matter of weeks. Notwithstanding the fact that the United States gives more material support to some of its allies than it ever has, in the form of aid or arms sales (to Saudi Arabia and Israel, for example), the perception of a declining U.S. alliance is strong and pervasive.

Notwithstanding the fact that the United States gives more material support to some of its allies than it ever has...the perception of a declining U.S. alliance is strong and pervasive.

Does this worry carry overseas? Does U.S. behavior in one region affect alliances elsewhere? The conversations I had in Japan (not a representative sample) certainly suggested so. Facing their own challenges—in a word, China—many of our interlocutors seemed anxious about U.S. commitments in their region and referenced U.S. policy in the Middle East to buttress their concerns.

I asked several people I met in Japan what their country would want from a new U.S. president, assuming he or she is still interested in productive U.S. engagement in the world (so, "she"). While I'm sure many in Japan greatly appreciate the Hiroshima visit, I heard two other requests, both related to alliance credibility and to China:

The new president should make a gesture of visible, material support to Taiwan, the front-line, as they called it, facing China; and

The first presidential visit in the region can include any number of allied capitals, but it should not include Beijing.

In essence, they wanted reassurance that the United States was still committed to their side of the regional rivalry; that the U.S. president would choose sides, and choose their side.

Middle East alliances: Flipping sides or seeking distance?

"Choosing sides" lies at the heart of the Middle East alliance dilemmas as well. The most pointed complaints you hear from U.S. allies are that the United States has failed to back them explicitly and concretely in the region-wide conflicts sweeping the Middle East, and especially against Iran and its proxies.

This is the view my former colleague Michael Doran articulated in an influential piece last year in Mosaic. He argued that contra common perceptions at the time, Obama had a coherent strategy in the Middle East, a point largely validated in Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Obama Doctrine.” Doran went further and argued that this strategy was not merely a de-emphasis of America's alliances in the region but a deliberate decision to betray allies and switch sides. Echoing fears in the region, he wrote that Obama had an "announced determination to encourage and augment Iran's potential as a successful regional power and as a friend and partner to the United States" (emphasis added).

This latter point, I think, is an incorrect depiction of the president's approach. Obama was not flipping sides; he was doing something conceptually more radical. He questioned the need to choose sides at all.

Obama was not flipping sides; he was doing something conceptually more radical. He questioned the need to choose sides at all.

The realist approach to foreign policy that Obama partially espouses stresses policies based on direct and concrete national interest. Alliances, which call for action on behalf of others' interests, naturally strain this approach. In the words of then-British Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston in 1848: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

The Obama administration is far from neutral in the Middle East, of course. Despite a reduced involvement in the region, American forces are currently fighting there, and arms, aid, and diplomacy are all still heavily deployed. Yet it’s clear that Obama wants a more distanced posture, viewing the region in terms of a balance of power, rather than an outright victory of one side over another. This drives Middle East allies mad—the perceived aloofness, even disdain for the quarrels of irrational local actors.

"Whose side are you on?" seems to be the recurrent theme in allies' complaints. They have something there: Obama has sided with allies, but not as often as they'd like, and, at times, with clear reluctance. The United States has adopted the stance of the adult in the room, above the partisan fray. Obama doesn't get it, in their view. He doesn't see that there is a bloody, region-wide war raging between (what should be, they think) clear friends and foes.

In truth, neutrality has its appeal: It guards against the folly of war and keeps one safely removed from the pernicious logic of escalation and counter-escalation. Excessive alliance entanglement also can feed a sense that the United States is omnipotent and responsible for everything, creating moral hazard and tying the United States into sharing too much of the burden. Even the president has now complained, to Goldberg, of allies free-riding on U.S.-supplied international security.

Neutrality in a worthy fight is no virtue, however. The so-called “Greatest Generation” of Americans and their Soviet and British contemporaries are celebrated, and rightly so. Their Swiss counterparts are not. And to those in the fight, the war usually seems worthy, as it does to the parties in the Middle East.

[T]here’s a contradiction between these concerns and the reality of deep U.S. involvement in both regions.

What I heard in Japan echoed the Middle Eastern sentiment, to a degree: both want the United States to demonstrate that it knows whose side it’s on. There’s also a common contradiction between these concerns and the reality of deep U.S. involvement in both regions. Just as the United States is heavily involved in the Middle East, in East Asia the United States has dozens of thousands of troops stationed in allied countries; it conducts joint exercises and naval maneuvers on a regular basis; it has explicitly extended its security guarantee to the Senkaku islands, as they’re known in Japan; and it devotes a great deal of time and energy to East Asian affairs.

Some anxiety is normal

The concerns are no accident. Alliances, by their very nature, are anxiety-inducing. They are necessary, after all, precisely when the interests of countries are not perfectly aligned (otherwise the countries would be incentivized to act in consort anyway, and no formal alliance would be needed). Western European countries, for example, could have suspected with good reason that the United States would not want to entangle itself, yet again, in bloody European wars had the Soviet Union invaded. As Tom Wright wrote in the context of another presidential candidate's misgivings on alliances, a formal alliance, NATO, committed the United States to fight alongside its allies by stationing troops in West Germany. The same was and is true for Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Alliances, in other words, are needed precisely so as to commit the parties to act beyond their immediate interests, taking a longer view, and this commitment is inherently open to interpretation and questioning.

Alliances, in other words, are needed precisely so as to commit the parties to act beyond their immediate interests, taking a longer view, and this commitment is inherently open to interpretation and questioning.

The question then is: Where do you draw the red line beyond which you will truly fight? Draw it too narrowly and you will effectively lose your alliances and risk losing all they provide: Alliances make allies feel less compelled to arm themselves and instigate regional arms races (conventional or nuclear); adversaries, too, may see less incentive in trying to arm themselves if faced with overwhelming allied superiority; allies may feel less inclined to react to every perceived infringement of their sovereignty or national honor, since they would be more secure in their position; and adversaries understand in advance the limits of one's patience and can avoid crossing these thresholds. Properly maintained alliances, in short, provide for peace.

Draw the lines of your commitment too broadly, however, and you risk stoking conflict rather than supporting peace. The U.S. relationship with China is of paramount importance for the next century of world affairs. If at all possible, steering it toward peaceful, healthy competition is a vital U.S. interest. In Asia as in the Middle East, supporting U.S. allies should always be approached with prudence to the stakes on both ends of the spectrum. Alliance maintenance and alliance anxiety provide no simple answers.

U.S. allies’ anxiety is accentuated when they look at the state of U.S. politics. Americans are understandably weary of their foreign commitments, and their leaders in this dysfunctional city are not doing enough to enunciate the differences between essential U.S. involvement in the world and overreach. One presidential contender is openly disparaging the most sensible of U.S. alliances; all three remaining candidates now formally reject the agreed-upon version of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, a cornerstone of the U.S. rebalance to Asia.

Maintaining the dramatic gains—to the United States and to the world—of the U.S. alliance system will therefore require an honest and responsible political conversation about these gains. It will require deliberately sustaining alliances, without falling into a trap of treating every anxiety abroad as a sign of doom. In the Middle East, this is complicated enough, but for once, those of us in the Middle East business can pity our Asia-hand colleagues for their problems.

Authors

Last week, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and pay tribute at the Peace Memorial there. It was a remarkable spectacle, with the leaders of the enemies-turned-allies at the most sensitive site of their relationship. The occasion also touched on a crucial question of U.S. foreign policy and of the world order: the U.S. alliance system that emerged after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The visit came at a time when many U.S. allies question the future and durability of these alliances. The U.S. presidential election presents a unique threat to the alliance system, with a major political party about to nominate a candidate openly hostile to U.S. alliances. Donald Trump has suggested that the United States might lift the security umbrella over Japan and South Korea, and that he finds it perfectly acceptable that these allies may arm themselves with nuclear weapons as an alternative defense. Beyond Trump, U.S. politics are exerting an inward pull on politicians, and they are obliging. The president's visit also follows years of strains to U.S. alliances elsewhere—in the Middle East—and his administration openly questions the depth of U.S. involvement required to maintain some of its Middle Eastern partnerships.

I visited Japan last month for discussions on Middle Eastern affairs—and U.S. and Japanese involvement in them—with Japanese officials, scholars, and journalists. It was a view from one end of the U.S. pivot to Asia (or the "rebalance") to another; from the region ripe for deeper U.S. investment to that in which the administration hoped invest less (and which stubbornly refused to be divested from). I was not a Japan expert before the trip, nor am I now, but it was valuable for me to hear how the Japanese I met looked to, and what they learned from, U.S. involvement in a region I know slightly better, in Asia's southwest.

In the Middle East, many now complain that the United States has lost credibility as an ally. After 30 years of supporting Mubarak, the refrain goes, the United States abandoned him in a matter of weeks. Notwithstanding the fact that the United States gives more material support to some of its allies than it ever has, in the form of aid or arms sales (to Saudi Arabia and Israel, for example), the perception of a declining U.S. alliance is strong and pervasive.

Notwithstanding the fact that the United States gives more material support to some of its allies than it ever has...the perception of a declining U.S. alliance is strong and pervasive.

Does this worry carry overseas? Does U.S. behavior in one region affect alliances elsewhere? The conversations I had in Japan (not a representative sample) certainly suggested so. Facing their own challenges—in a word, China—many of our interlocutors seemed anxious about U.S. commitments in their region and referenced U.S. policy in the Middle East to buttress their concerns.

I asked several people I met in Japan what their country would want from a new U.S. president, assuming he or she is still interested in productive U.S. engagement in the world (so, "she"). While I'm sure many in Japan greatly appreciate the Hiroshima visit, I heard two other requests, both related to alliance credibility and to China:

The new president should make a gesture of visible, material support to Taiwan, the front-line, as they called it, facing China; and

The first presidential visit in the region can include any number of allied capitals, but it should not include Beijing.

In essence, they wanted reassurance that the United States was still committed to their side of the regional rivalry; that the U.S. president would choose sides, and choose their side.

Middle East alliances: Flipping sides or seeking distance?

"Choosing sides" lies at the heart of the Middle East alliance dilemmas as well. The most pointed complaints you hear from U.S. allies are that the United States has failed to back them explicitly and concretely in the region-wide conflicts sweeping the Middle East, and especially against Iran and its proxies.

This is the view my former colleague Michael Doran articulated in an influential piece last year in Mosaic. He argued that contra common perceptions at the time, Obama had a coherent strategy in the Middle East, a point largely validated in Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Obama Doctrine.” Doran went further and argued that this strategy was not merely a de-emphasis of America's alliances in the region but a deliberate decision to betray allies and switch sides. Echoing fears in the region, he wrote that Obama had an "announced determination to encourage and augment Iran's potential as a successful regional power and as a friend and partner to the United States" (emphasis added).

This latter point, I think, is an incorrect depiction of the president's approach. Obama was not flipping sides; he was doing something conceptually more radical. He questioned the need to choose sides at all.

Obama was not flipping sides; he was doing something conceptually more radical. He questioned the need to choose sides at all.

The realist approach to foreign policy that Obama partially espouses stresses policies based on direct and concrete national interest. Alliances, which call for action on behalf of others' interests, naturally strain this approach. In the words of then-British Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston in 1848: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

The Obama administration is far from neutral in the Middle East, of course. Despite a reduced involvement in the region, American forces are currently fighting there, and arms, aid, and diplomacy are all still heavily deployed. Yet it’s clear that Obama wants a more distanced posture, viewing the region in terms of a balance of power, rather than an outright victory of one side over another. This drives Middle East allies mad—the perceived aloofness, even disdain for the quarrels of irrational local actors.

"Whose side are you on?" seems to be the recurrent theme in allies' complaints. They have something there: Obama has sided with allies, but not as often as they'd like, and, at times, with clear reluctance. The United States has adopted the stance of the adult in the room, above the partisan fray. Obama doesn't get it, in their view. He doesn't see that there is a bloody, region-wide war raging between (what should be, they think) clear friends and foes.

In truth, neutrality has its appeal: It guards against the folly of war and keeps one safely removed from the pernicious logic of escalation and counter-escalation. Excessive alliance entanglement also can feed a sense that the United States is omnipotent and responsible for everything, creating moral hazard and tying the United States into sharing too much of the burden. Even the president has now complained, to Goldberg, of allies free-riding on U.S.-supplied international security.

Neutrality in a worthy fight is no virtue, however. The so-called “Greatest Generation” of Americans and their Soviet and British contemporaries are celebrated, and rightly so. Their Swiss counterparts are not. And to those in the fight, the war usually seems worthy, as it does to the parties in the Middle East.

[T]here’s a contradiction between these concerns and the reality of deep U.S. involvement in both regions.

What I heard in Japan echoed the Middle Eastern sentiment, to a degree: both want the United States to demonstrate that it knows whose side it’s on. There’s also a common contradiction between these concerns and the reality of deep U.S. involvement in both regions. Just as the United States is heavily involved in the Middle East, in East Asia the United States has dozens of thousands of troops stationed in allied countries; it conducts joint exercises and naval maneuvers on a regular basis; it has explicitly extended its security guarantee to the Senkaku islands, as they’re known in Japan; and it devotes a great deal of time and energy to East Asian affairs.

Some anxiety is normal

The concerns are no accident. Alliances, by their very nature, are anxiety-inducing. They are necessary, after all, precisely when the interests of countries are not perfectly aligned (otherwise the countries would be incentivized to act in consort anyway, and no formal alliance would be needed). Western European countries, for example, could have suspected with good reason that the United States would not want to entangle itself, yet again, in bloody European wars had the Soviet Union invaded. As Tom Wright wrote in the context of another presidential candidate's misgivings on alliances, a formal alliance, NATO, committed the United States to fight alongside its allies by stationing troops in West Germany. The same was and is true for Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Alliances, in other words, are needed precisely so as to commit the parties to act beyond their immediate interests, taking a longer view, and this commitment is inherently open to interpretation and questioning.

Alliances, in other words, are needed precisely so as to commit the parties to act beyond their immediate interests, taking a longer view, and this commitment is inherently open to interpretation and questioning.

The question then is: Where do you draw the red line beyond which you will truly fight? Draw it too narrowly and you will effectively lose your alliances and risk losing all they provide: Alliances make allies feel less compelled to arm themselves and instigate regional arms races (conventional or nuclear); adversaries, too, may see less incentive in trying to arm themselves if faced with overwhelming allied superiority; allies may feel less inclined to react to every perceived infringement of their sovereignty or national honor, since they would be more secure in their position; and adversaries understand in advance the limits of one's patience and can avoid crossing these thresholds. Properly maintained alliances, in short, provide for peace.

Draw the lines of your commitment too broadly, however, and you risk stoking conflict rather than supporting peace. The U.S. relationship with China is of paramount importance for the next century of world affairs. If at all possible, steering it toward peaceful, healthy competition is a vital U.S. interest. In Asia as in the Middle East, supporting U.S. allies should always be approached with prudence to the stakes on both ends of the spectrum. Alliance maintenance and alliance anxiety provide no simple answers.

U.S. allies’ anxiety is accentuated when they look at the state of U.S. politics. Americans are understandably weary of their foreign commitments, and their leaders in this dysfunctional city are not doing enough to enunciate the differences between essential U.S. involvement in the world and overreach. One presidential contender is openly disparaging the most sensible of U.S. alliances; all three remaining candidates now formally reject the agreed-upon version of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, a cornerstone of the U.S. rebalance to Asia.

Maintaining the dramatic gains—to the United States and to the world—of the U.S. alliance system will therefore require an honest and responsible political conversation about these gains. It will require deliberately sustaining alliances, without falling into a trap of treating every anxiety abroad as a sign of doom. In the Middle East, this is complicated enough, but for once, those of us in the Middle East business can pity our Asia-hand colleagues for their problems.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/03/21-west-bank-trip-report-elgindy?rssid=trip+reports{B3485C75-5F48-4EC1-AF14-FAB6B9B18081}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/145220146/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~A-view-from-the-West-Bank-Three-key-takeawaysA view from the West Bank: Three key takeaways

While much of the outside world has focused on the current wave of violence in Israel and the West Bank, far less attention is paid to the causes behind it and the context in which it is occurring. In meetings last month in Ramallah and Jerusalem with a range of Palestinian politicians, journalists, and analysts, as well as with senior U.S. officials, it was clear that the attacks reflect the deepening anger and despondency among Palestinians.

The current violence is largely despair-driven, but remains individualistic and politically directionless. Palestinians use different terms to describe the current violence. Popularly, and in most local media, it is known as the “Jerusalem Intifada.” But unlike previous Palestinian uprisings, this latest wave of violence lacks both political organization and clear political demands.

The fact that so many young Palestinians are willing to risk almost certain death in order to carry out otherwise ineffective stabbing attacks on Israelis points to a deep sense of hopelessness and despair. It’s not only that Israeli settlement expansion, home demolitions, land confiscations, and movement restrictions continue to rob Palestinians of their land, livelihoods, and dignity; it’s that Palestinians now must endure Israel’s seemingly endless occupation without any of the “safety nets” they traditionally have fallen back on: the peace process is dead, Arab regional support and solidarity has evaporated, and their political leaders (both secular and Islamist) are ineffective and increasingly discredited.

In short, Palestinians feel a deep sense of abandonment by the international community, their fellow Arabs, and even their own leaders. Although domestic political considerations as well as Abbas’ own waning credibility have constrained the leadership’s ability to disavow the violence outright, the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to work quietly with the Israelis to keep the situation under control. The main question now, particularly for U.S. officials, is how long this PA security coordination with Israel can continue given mounting public opposition and the precipitous decline in international aid, which according to the World Bank is down by roughly 60 percent.

As confidence in Abbas’ leadership declines, Palestinian political stagnation and dysfunction is likely to continue. Since a public opinion poll published last September found that an unprecedented two-thirds of Palestinians wanted Abbas to resign, popular frustration with the Palestinian leader seems only to have grown. Many Palestinians lament what they see as the transformation of their national movement from groups and leaders dedicated to national liberation to a ruling class with special privileges (VIP status, travel, etc.) and a stake in the status quo. Even American officials seemed alarmed by the extent to which the PA is now perceived as a “collaborationist” government by ordinary Palestinians.

At the same time, Abbas’ leadership style and decision-making are also alienating much of the political elite, including within his own Fatah movement. Several Palestinian officials were privately critical of Abbas. Others have been more open in their criticism, including former West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub, who recently railed against Abbas and his inner clique in a lengthy interview on Palestinian TV.

Much of the internal frustration with Abbas has to do with recent leadership appointments as well as what many see as his growing paranoia and personal vendettas against perceived rivals like Salam Fayyad, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, and his arch-nemesis, Mohamed Dahlan, the now-exiled former Gaza security chief. Both of these underscore the growing anxiety over the lack of clarity regarding a future succession process (on which I will have more to say in a subsequent post). Many also voiced skepticism about Abbas’ current diplomatic strategy, which is focused on building support for an international peace conference. While most Palestinians support internationalization, and virtually no one supports a return to U.S.-led peace negotiations, there are doubts as to whether Abbas’ international efforts are rooted in a broader strategy.

The lack of strategic thinking is also fueling frustration over the ongoing stalemate with Hamas in Gaza. Indeed, many view Abbas as the primary obstacle to Gaza reconstruction and progress toward reconciliation with Hamas. Despite Hamas’ clear weakness since 2013, Abbas has been loath to give Hamas anything it could claim as a political concession and is equally reluctant to inherit responsibility for Gaza’s myriad social, economic, and security problems, for which he currently has no solutions.

[T]here is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene.

Consequently, there is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene. At the same time, despite the growing frustration with Abbas, most are not eager to accelerate his departure. As I have written elsewhere, the absence of credible alternatives has given Abbas a sort of “legitimacy by default.” This may explain Abbas’ otherwise inexplicable complacency and his sense, as I was repeatedly told, that time is on his side.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers face their own set of equally daunting political, economic, and security challenges. Although I did not visit Gaza or meet with any Hamas representatives, both figured prominently in most of my discussions. Hamas continues to face serious financial problems as a result of the virtual elimination of its tunnels network and the closure of the Rafah border crossing. The scarcity of resources, a major factor in Hamas’ decision to pursue reconciliation with the PA in 2014, is also fueling tensions within the movement. Whereas Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, seeks to rebuild its military capabilities and restore its ties with Iran, its political leadership is equally keen to avoid another military confrontation with Israel and hopes to capitalize on diplomatic openings with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The main security threat to Hamas rule comes from jihadi groups, most notably Jaysh al-Islam in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, both of which have pledged allegiance to ISIS and regard Hamas (as well as its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood) as apostates. Despite occasional tit-for-tat attacks, at the moment neither Hamas nor the jihadis appear eager for a major fight. The potential for escalation remains, however, particularly if jihadi groups decide to exploit internal discontent within Hamas or force its hand militarily by launching rocket attacks on Israel. Such internal instability, along with the slow pace of reconstruction and already abysmal economic and humanitarian conditions in Gaza, highlights the ever-present danger of yet another devastating war between Israel and Hamas.

In the end, while the outside world’s preoccupation with the current wave of violence is understandable, merely condemning ad hoc violence by Palestinians while failing to address the deeper, institutionalized violence of the Israeli occupation is both morally dishonest and politically untenable.

Authors

While much of the outside world has focused on the current wave of violence in Israel and the West Bank, far less attention is paid to the causes behind it and the context in which it is occurring. In meetings last month in Ramallah and Jerusalem with a range of Palestinian politicians, journalists, and analysts, as well as with senior U.S. officials, it was clear that the attacks reflect the deepening anger and despondency among Palestinians.

The current violence is largely despair-driven, but remains individualistic and politically directionless. Palestinians use different terms to describe the current violence. Popularly, and in most local media, it is known as the “Jerusalem Intifada.” But unlike previous Palestinian uprisings, this latest wave of violence lacks both political organization and clear political demands.

The fact that so many young Palestinians are willing to risk almost certain death in order to carry out otherwise ineffective stabbing attacks on Israelis points to a deep sense of hopelessness and despair. It’s not only that Israeli settlement expansion, home demolitions, land confiscations, and movement restrictions continue to rob Palestinians of their land, livelihoods, and dignity; it’s that Palestinians now must endure Israel’s seemingly endless occupation without any of the “safety nets” they traditionally have fallen back on: the peace process is dead, Arab regional support and solidarity has evaporated, and their political leaders (both secular and Islamist) are ineffective and increasingly discredited.

In short, Palestinians feel a deep sense of abandonment by the international community, their fellow Arabs, and even their own leaders. Although domestic political considerations as well as Abbas’ own waning credibility have constrained the leadership’s ability to disavow the violence outright, the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to work quietly with the Israelis to keep the situation under control. The main question now, particularly for U.S. officials, is how long this PA security coordination with Israel can continue given mounting public opposition and the precipitous decline in international aid, which according to the World Bank is down by roughly 60 percent.

As confidence in Abbas’ leadership declines, Palestinian political stagnation and dysfunction is likely to continue. Since a public opinion poll published last September found that an unprecedented two-thirds of Palestinians wanted Abbas to resign, popular frustration with the Palestinian leader seems only to have grown. Many Palestinians lament what they see as the transformation of their national movement from groups and leaders dedicated to national liberation to a ruling class with special privileges (VIP status, travel, etc.) and a stake in the status quo. Even American officials seemed alarmed by the extent to which the PA is now perceived as a “collaborationist” government by ordinary Palestinians.

At the same time, Abbas’ leadership style and decision-making are also alienating much of the political elite, including within his own Fatah movement. Several Palestinian officials were privately critical of Abbas. Others have been more open in their criticism, including former West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub, who recently railed against Abbas and his inner clique in a lengthy interview on Palestinian TV.

Much of the internal frustration with Abbas has to do with recent leadership appointments as well as what many see as his growing paranoia and personal vendettas against perceived rivals like Salam Fayyad, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, and his arch-nemesis, Mohamed Dahlan, the now-exiled former Gaza security chief. Both of these underscore the growing anxiety over the lack of clarity regarding a future succession process (on which I will have more to say in a subsequent post). Many also voiced skepticism about Abbas’ current diplomatic strategy, which is focused on building support for an international peace conference. While most Palestinians support internationalization, and virtually no one supports a return to U.S.-led peace negotiations, there are doubts as to whether Abbas’ international efforts are rooted in a broader strategy.

The lack of strategic thinking is also fueling frustration over the ongoing stalemate with Hamas in Gaza. Indeed, many view Abbas as the primary obstacle to Gaza reconstruction and progress toward reconciliation with Hamas. Despite Hamas’ clear weakness since 2013, Abbas has been loath to give Hamas anything it could claim as a political concession and is equally reluctant to inherit responsibility for Gaza’s myriad social, economic, and security problems, for which he currently has no solutions.

[T]here is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene.

Consequently, there is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene. At the same time, despite the growing frustration with Abbas, most are not eager to accelerate his departure. As I have written elsewhere, the absence of credible alternatives has given Abbas a sort of “legitimacy by default.” This may explain Abbas’ otherwise inexplicable complacency and his sense, as I was repeatedly told, that time is on his side.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers face their own set of equally daunting political, economic, and security challenges. Although I did not visit Gaza or meet with any Hamas representatives, both figured prominently in most of my discussions. Hamas continues to face serious financial problems as a result of the virtual elimination of its tunnels network and the closure of the Rafah border crossing. The scarcity of resources, a major factor in Hamas’ decision to pursue reconciliation with the PA in 2014, is also fueling tensions within the movement. Whereas Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, seeks to rebuild its military capabilities and restore its ties with Iran, its political leadership is equally keen to avoid another military confrontation with Israel and hopes to capitalize on diplomatic openings with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The main security threat to Hamas rule comes from jihadi groups, most notably Jaysh al-Islam in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, both of which have pledged allegiance to ISIS and regard Hamas (as well as its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood) as apostates. Despite occasional tit-for-tat attacks, at the moment neither Hamas nor the jihadis appear eager for a major fight. The potential for escalation remains, however, particularly if jihadi groups decide to exploit internal discontent within Hamas or force its hand militarily by launching rocket attacks on Israel. Such internal instability, along with the slow pace of reconstruction and already abysmal economic and humanitarian conditions in Gaza, highlights the ever-present danger of yet another devastating war between Israel and Hamas.

In the end, while the outside world’s preoccupation with the current wave of violence is understandable, merely condemning ad hoc violence by Palestinians while failing to address the deeper, institutionalized violence of the Israeli occupation is both morally dishonest and politically untenable.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2016/02/05-trip-report-greece-refugees-drozdiak?rssid=trip+reports{B971BA0E-7F22-4FEE-9237-CB95C82FDAC8}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/136292417/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Greece%e2%80%99s-frightening-inability-to-deal-with-the-refugee-influxGreece’s frightening inability to deal with the refugee influx

Even though winter was supposed to bring something of a lull, officials at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Greece fear that the plight of refugees streaming into Europe is now poised to become much worse. As the first port of entry into Europe for hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing a brutal civil war, Greece is supposed to register all asylum seekers and arrange for orderly distribution of them throughout the 28-nation European Union.

But the Greeks, still suffering from economic depression, are woefully short of resources and totally incapable of handling even a fraction of the incoming refugee flows. Even now, with treacherous seas and bad weather, 2,000 to 3,000 people a day are trying to make the crossing from mainland Turkey to Lesvos, Chios, and a number of other islands as the first phase of their trek toward Europe. Despite a promise of 3 billion euros in aid, Turkey is scarcely doing anything to help staunch the flow. In January, there was a twenty-fold increase from a year ago in the number of refugees crossing from Turkey into Greece, and the prospect is that the tide will grow in the coming months.

Only one of the five "hotspots"—designated sites where refugees are supposed to enter the EU—is now operating. This is on the island of Lesvos, the largest island in the eastern Aegean where more than half of the Syrian refugees usually land after the perilous journey from Turkey. The Greeks say they simply do not have the resources to set up other processing centers on the islands Samos, Leros, Chios, and Kos.

[T]he Greeks, still suffering from economic depression, are woefully short of resources and totally incapable of handling even a fraction of the incoming refugee flows.

Yet even on Lesvos, the situation is deplorable. During my recent five-day visit to Greece, there were two shipwrecks on the same day—they caused corpses, including tiny toddlers, to wash up on the shore. Volunteers carried the bodies to a makeshift morgue, where hundreds of other unclaimed bodies were stored. The UNHCR has pleaded to no avail with NATO and the EU to help by stepping up sea patrols since the Greeks and the Turks seem unable or unwilling to rescue or turn back the refugee boats. As a result, the death toll is growing. More than 3,770 people died in 2015 attempting to cross the sea into Europe, and UNHCR officials say January 2016 was the deadliest month since the refugee crisis began.

For those refugees who do survive the perilous crossing to the Greek islands, they are quickly dispatched by ferry to the port of Piraeus near Athens where they are taken almost immediately by bus to the northern Greek border with Macedonia. Last year, about 880,000 refugees arrived in Greece and Italy on their way north—about 80 percent of all those refugees who came to Europe. This year, the numbers are expected to continue growing at a fast pace. Until now, the relatively porous frontier with Macedonia has enabled the Greeks to send Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan refugees through to their preferred destinations in Austria and Germany.

Europe, the pressure cooker

But now, under pressure from those governments who want to curtail the influx, the European Union is threatening to expel Greece from the Schengen treaty, which assures the EU's passport-free travel zone. The EU also is proposing to send police forces to help Macedonia, which is not a member state, to bolster its defenses against refugee flows from Greece, which would in turn transform much of impoverished Greece into a vast archipelago of processing centers holding hundreds of thousands of refugees with no hope of finding work given the deplorable state of the Greek economy.

This was a fascinating if depressing trip that showed the futility and fecklessness of Europe's efforts so far to deal with the burgeoning refugee crisis.

This was a fascinating if depressing trip that showed the futility and fecklessness of Europe's efforts so far to deal with the burgeoning refugee crisis. By April, the crisis could reach catastrophic proportions that will trigger fear and panic across the continent. Right now, countries like Germany and Austria are absorbed by the challenge of how to provide accommodations for the refugees that are already there, as well as how to stem the expanded flow that they fear will start coming in the spring. The discussion of how to process, integrate, and find jobs for the refugees who have already arrived in Europe and show a willingness to assimilate has barely begun.

Authors

Even though winter was supposed to bring something of a lull, officials at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Greece fear that the plight of refugees streaming into Europe is now poised to become much worse. As the first port of entry into Europe for hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing a brutal civil war, Greece is supposed to register all asylum seekers and arrange for orderly distribution of them throughout the 28-nation European Union.

But the Greeks, still suffering from economic depression, are woefully short of resources and totally incapable of handling even a fraction of the incoming refugee flows. Even now, with treacherous seas and bad weather, 2,000 to 3,000 people a day are trying to make the crossing from mainland Turkey to Lesvos, Chios, and a number of other islands as the first phase of their trek toward Europe. Despite a promise of 3 billion euros in aid, Turkey is scarcely doing anything to help staunch the flow. In January, there was a twenty-fold increase from a year ago in the number of refugees crossing from Turkey into Greece, and the prospect is that the tide will grow in the coming months.

Only one of the five "hotspots"—designated sites where refugees are supposed to enter the EU—is now operating. This is on the island of Lesvos, the largest island in the eastern Aegean where more than half of the Syrian refugees usually land after the perilous journey from Turkey. The Greeks say they simply do not have the resources to set up other processing centers on the islands Samos, Leros, Chios, and Kos.

[T]he Greeks, still suffering from economic depression, are woefully short of resources and totally incapable of handling even a fraction of the incoming refugee flows.

Yet even on Lesvos, the situation is deplorable. During my recent five-day visit to Greece, there were two shipwrecks on the same day—they caused corpses, including tiny toddlers, to wash up on the shore. Volunteers carried the bodies to a makeshift morgue, where hundreds of other unclaimed bodies were stored. The UNHCR has pleaded to no avail with NATO and the EU to help by stepping up sea patrols since the Greeks and the Turks seem unable or unwilling to rescue or turn back the refugee boats. As a result, the death toll is growing. More than 3,770 people died in 2015 attempting to cross the sea into Europe, and UNHCR officials say January 2016 was the deadliest month since the refugee crisis began.

For those refugees who do survive the perilous crossing to the Greek islands, they are quickly dispatched by ferry to the port of Piraeus near Athens where they are taken almost immediately by bus to the northern Greek border with Macedonia. Last year, about 880,000 refugees arrived in Greece and Italy on their way north—about 80 percent of all those refugees who came to Europe. This year, the numbers are expected to continue growing at a fast pace. Until now, the relatively porous frontier with Macedonia has enabled the Greeks to send Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan refugees through to their preferred destinations in Austria and Germany.

Europe, the pressure cooker

But now, under pressure from those governments who want to curtail the influx, the European Union is threatening to expel Greece from the Schengen treaty, which assures the EU's passport-free travel zone. The EU also is proposing to send police forces to help Macedonia, which is not a member state, to bolster its defenses against refugee flows from Greece, which would in turn transform much of impoverished Greece into a vast archipelago of processing centers holding hundreds of thousands of refugees with no hope of finding work given the deplorable state of the Greek economy.

This was a fascinating if depressing trip that showed the futility and fecklessness of Europe's efforts so far to deal with the burgeoning refugee crisis.

This was a fascinating if depressing trip that showed the futility and fecklessness of Europe's efforts so far to deal with the burgeoning refugee crisis. By April, the crisis could reach catastrophic proportions that will trigger fear and panic across the continent. Right now, countries like Germany and Austria are absorbed by the challenge of how to provide accommodations for the refugees that are already there, as well as how to stem the expanded flow that they fear will start coming in the spring. The discussion of how to process, integrate, and find jobs for the refugees who have already arrived in Europe and show a willingness to assimilate has barely begun.

Change is a complicated thing in Cuba. On the one hand, many Cubans remain frustrated with limits on economic and political opportunity, and millennials are emigrating in ever rising numbers. On the other, there is more space for entrepreneurship, and Havana is full of energy and promise today.

The island’s emerging private sector is growing—and along with it, start-up investment costs. Three years ago, Yamina Vicente opened her events planning firm, Decorazón, with a mere $500 in cash. Today she estimates she would need $5,000 to compete. New upscale restaurants are opening: Mery Cabrera returned from Ecuador to invest her savings in Café Presidente, a sleek bistro located on the busy Avenue of the Presidents. And lively bars at establishments like 304 O’Reilly feature bright mixologists doing brisk business.

Photo credit: Richard Feinberg.

Havana’s hotels are fully booked through the current high season. The overflow of tourists is welcome news for the thousands of bed-and-breakfasts flowering throughout the city (many of which are now networked through AirBnB). While most bed-and-breakfasts used to be one or two rooms rented out of people’s homes, Cubans today are renovating entire buildings to rent out. These are the green shoots of what will become boutique hotels, and Cubans are quitting their low-paying jobs in the public sector to become managers of their family’s rental offerings.

Another new sign: real estate agencies! Most Cubans own their own homes—really own them, mortgage-free. But only recently did President Raúl Castro authorize the sales of homes, suddenly giving Cubans a valuable financial asset. Many sell them to get cash to open a new business. Others, to immigrate to Miami.

WiFi hot spots are also growing in number. Rejecting an offer from Google to provide Internet access to the entire island, the Cuban government instead set up some 700 public access locations. This includes 65 WiFi hot spots in parks, hotels, or major thoroughfares, where mostly young Cubans gather to message friends or chat with relatives overseas.

Economic swings

2015 was a good year for the Cuban economy, relatively speaking. Growth rose from the disappointing 2 percent in recent years to (by official measures) 4 percent. The Brazilian joint venture cigarette company, Brascuba, reported a 17 percent jump in sales, and announced a new $120 million investment in the Mariel Economic Development Zone. Shoppers crowded state-run malls over the holiday season, too.

Photo credit: Richard Feinberg.

Consumers still report chronic shortages in many commodities, ranging from beer to soap, and complain of inflation in food prices. Alarmed by the chronic crisis of low productivity in agriculture, the government announced tax breaks for farmers in 2016. The government is already forecasting a slower growth rate for 2016, attributed to lower commodity prices and a faltering Venezuelan economy. It’s likely to fall back to the average 2 percent rate that has characterized the past decade.

Pick up the pace

Cuban officials are looking forward to the 7th Conference of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) in mid-April. There is little public discussion of the agenda, however. Potential initiatives include a new electoral law permitting direct election of members of the national assembly (who are currently chosen indirectly by regional assemblies or by CCP-related mass organizations); a timetable for unification of the currency (Cubans today must deal with two forms of money); some measures to empower provincial governments; and the development of a more coherent, forward-looking economic development strategy.

[T]here are now two brain drains: an internal brain drain, as government officials abandon the public sector for higher incomes in the growing private sector; and emigration overseas.

But for many younger Cubans, the pace of change is way too slow. The talk of the town remains the exit option. Converse with any well-educated millennial and they’ll tell you that half or more of their classmates are now living abroad. Indeed, there are now two brain drains: an internal brain drain, as government officials abandon the public sector for higher incomes in the growing private sector; and emigration overseas to the United States, but also to Spain, Canada, Mexico.

The challenge for the governing CCP is to give young people hope in the future. The White House has signaled that President Obama may visit Cuba this year. Such a visit by Obama—who is immensely popular on the island—could help. But the main task is essentially a Cuban one.

Richard Feinberg’s forthcoming book, “Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy,” will be published by Brookings Press later this year.

Authors

Change is a complicated thing in Cuba. On the one hand, many Cubans remain frustrated with limits on economic and political opportunity, and millennials are emigrating in ever rising numbers. On the other, there is more space for entrepreneurship, and Havana is full of energy and promise today.

The island’s emerging private sector is growing—and along with it, start-up investment costs. Three years ago, Yamina Vicente opened her events planning firm, Decorazón, with a mere $500 in cash. Today she estimates she would need $5,000 to compete. New upscale restaurants are opening: Mery Cabrera returned from Ecuador to invest her savings in Café Presidente, a sleek bistro located on the busy Avenue of the Presidents. And lively bars at establishments like 304 O’Reilly feature bright mixologists doing brisk business.

Photo credit: Richard Feinberg.

Havana’s hotels are fully booked through the current high season. The overflow of tourists is welcome news for the thousands of bed-and-breakfasts flowering throughout the city (many of which are now networked through AirBnB). While most bed-and-breakfasts used to be one or two rooms rented out of people’s homes, Cubans today are renovating entire buildings to rent out. These are the green shoots of what will become boutique hotels, and Cubans are quitting their low-paying jobs in the public sector to become managers of their family’s rental offerings.

Another new sign: real estate agencies! Most Cubans own their own homes—really own them, mortgage-free. But only recently did President Raúl Castro authorize the sales of homes, suddenly giving Cubans a valuable financial asset. Many sell them to get cash to open a new business. Others, to immigrate to Miami.

WiFi hot spots are also growing in number. Rejecting an offer from Google to provide Internet access to the entire island, the Cuban government instead set up some 700 public access locations. This includes 65 WiFi hot spots in parks, hotels, or major thoroughfares, where mostly young Cubans gather to message friends or chat with relatives overseas.

Economic swings

2015 was a good year for the Cuban economy, relatively speaking. Growth rose from the disappointing 2 percent in recent years to (by official measures) 4 percent. The Brazilian joint venture cigarette company, Brascuba, reported a 17 percent jump in sales, and announced a new $120 million investment in the Mariel Economic Development Zone. Shoppers crowded state-run malls over the holiday season, too.

Photo credit: Richard Feinberg.

Consumers still report chronic shortages in many commodities, ranging from beer to soap, and complain of inflation in food prices. Alarmed by the chronic crisis of low productivity in agriculture, the government announced tax breaks for farmers in 2016. The government is already forecasting a slower growth rate for 2016, attributed to lower commodity prices and a faltering Venezuelan economy. It’s likely to fall back to the average 2 percent rate that has characterized the past decade.

Pick up the pace

Cuban officials are looking forward to the 7th Conference of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) in mid-April. There is little public discussion of the agenda, however. Potential initiatives include a new electoral law permitting direct election of members of the national assembly (who are currently chosen indirectly by regional assemblies or by CCP-related mass organizations); a timetable for unification of the currency (Cubans today must deal with two forms of money); some measures to empower provincial governments; and the development of a more coherent, forward-looking economic development strategy.

[T]here are now two brain drains: an internal brain drain, as government officials abandon the public sector for higher incomes in the growing private sector; and emigration overseas.

But for many younger Cubans, the pace of change is way too slow. The talk of the town remains the exit option. Converse with any well-educated millennial and they’ll tell you that half or more of their classmates are now living abroad. Indeed, there are now two brain drains: an internal brain drain, as government officials abandon the public sector for higher incomes in the growing private sector; and emigration overseas to the United States, but also to Spain, Canada, Mexico.

The challenge for the governing CCP is to give young people hope in the future. The White House has signaled that President Obama may visit Cuba this year. Such a visit by Obama—who is immensely popular on the island—could help. But the main task is essentially a Cuban one.

Richard Feinberg’s forthcoming book, “Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy,” will be published by Brookings Press later this year.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015/10/08-afghanistan-kunduz-dispatch-felbabbrown?rssid=trip+reports{5C2C66C8-8487-4D9F-B9D2-1913909B26AF}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/116173123/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~A-dispatch-from-Afghanistan-What-the-Taliban-offensive-in-Kunduz-revealsA dispatch from Afghanistan: What the Taliban offensive in Kunduz reveals

Editor’s note: Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown is currently on the ground in Afghanistan and sent over a dispatch on what she’s seeing.

President Barack Obama is about to make crucial decisions about the number of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2016 and possibly after. His decision will be a vital signal to other U.S. allies in Afghanistan and its neighbors. Recent events in Afghanistan, particularly the Taliban's capture of Kunduz, show how too large a reduction in US military and economic support can hollow out the state-building effort and strengthen the Taliban and many other terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including those labeling themselves daesh. In such a case, collapse of the government and indeed a collapse of the entire political order the United States has sought to build since 2001 are high. Maintaining support at something close to the current level of effort does not guarantee military or political success or that peace negotiations with the Taliban will eventually produce any satisfactory peace. But it buys us time. On the cusp of a dire situation, Afghan politicians equally need to put aside their self-interested hoarding, plotting, and back-stabbing, which are once again running high, and being put ahead of the national interest.

The Taliban’s recent victory in Kunduz is both highly impactful and different from the previous military efforts and victories of the Taliban over the past several years. For the first time since 2001, the Taliban managed to conquer an entire province and for several days hold its capital. The psychological effect in Afghanistan has been tremendous. For a few days, it looked like the entire provinces of Badakshan, Takhar, and Baghlan would also fall. Many Afghans in those provinces started getting ready to leave or began moving south. If all these northern provinces fell, the chances were high, with whispers and blatant loud talk of political coups intensifying for a number of days, that the Afghan government might fall, and perhaps the entire political system collapse., In short, the dangerous and deleterious political and psychological effects are far bigger than those from the Taliban's push in Musa Qala this year or last year. Particularly detrimental and disheartening was the fact that many Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) units, led by weak or corrupt commanders, did not fight, and threw down their arms and ran away. Conversely, the boost of morale to the Taliban and the strengthening of its new leader Mullah Akbar Mansour were great. However, the Taliban also discredited itself with its brutality in Kunduz City.

The Taliban operation to take Kuduz was very well-planned and put together over a period of months, perhaps years. Foreign fighters from Central Asia, China, and Pakistan featured prominently among the mix of some 1,000 fighters, adding much heft to local militias that the Taliban mobilized against the militias of the dominant powerbrokers and the United States, as well as the government-sponsored Afghan Local Police. The support of Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence for the Taliban, which the country has not been able to sever despite a decade of pressure from the United States and more recent engagement from China, significantly augmented the Taliban's capacities.

Kunduz is vital strategic province, with major access roads to various other parts of Afghanistan's north. Those who control the roads—still now the Taliban—also get major revenue from taxing travelers, which is significant along these opium-smuggling routes. It will take time for the Afghan forces to reduce Taliban control and influence along the roads, and large rural areas will be left in the hands of the Taliban for a while. Both in the rural areas and in Kunduz City itself, the Taliban is anchored among local population groups alienated by years of pernicious exclusionary and rapacious politics, which has only intensified since March of this year. Equally, however, many of the local population groups hate the Taliban, have engaged in revenge killings and abuses this week, and are spoiling for more revenge.

Despite the intense drama of the past week, however, Afghanistan has not fallen off the cliff. Takhar and Baghlan have not fallen, nor has all of Badakhshan. The political atmosphere in Kabul is still poisonous, but the various anti-government plots and scheming are dissipating in their intensity and immediacy. On Wednesday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reached out to some of those dissatisfied powerbrokers, who have been salivating for a change in political dispensation. The crisis is not over, neither on the battlefield in Kunduz and many other parts of Afghanistan, nor in the Afghan political system. But it is much easier to exhale on Thursday, October 8th.

United States air support was essential in retaking Kunduz and avoiding more of Badakhshan falling into the hands of the Taliban, precipitating a military domino effect in the north and inflaming the political crisis. Despite the terrible and tragic mistake of the U.S. bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital, maintaining and expanding U.S. air support for the Afghan forces, and allowing for U.S. support beyond in extremis, such as in preventing a similar Taliban offensive, is vital. It is equally important to augment intelligence- assets support. Significant reductions in U.S. assistance, whether that be troops, intelligence, or air support, will greatly increase the chances that another major Taliban success—like that of Kunduz, and perhaps possibly again in Kunduz—will happen again. It would also be accompanied by intensely dangerous political instability.

Equally imperative is that Afghan politicians put aside their self-interested scheming and rally behind the country to enable the government to function, or they will push Afghanistan over the brink into paralysis, intensified insurgency, and outright civil war. In addition to restraining their political and monetary ambitions and their many powerplays in Kabul, they need to recognize that years of abusive, discriminatory, exclusionary governance; extensive corruption; and individual and ethnic patronage and nepotism were the crucial roots of the crisis in Kunduz and elsewhere. These have corroded the Afghan Army and permeate the Afghan Police and anti-Taliban militias. Beyond blaming Pakistan, Afghan politicians and powerbrokers need to take a hard look at their behavior over the recent days and over many years and realize they have much to do to clean their own house to avoid disastrous outcomes for Afghanistan. To satisfy these politicians, many from the north of the country and prominent long-term powerbrokers, President Ghani decided over the past few days to include them more in consultations and power-sharing. Many Afghan people welcome such more inclusive politics, arguing that while the very survival of the country might be at stake, grand governance and anti-corruption ambitions need to be shelved. That may be a necessary bargain, but it is a Faustian one. Not all corruption or nepotism can or will disappear. But unless outright rapacious, exclusionary, and deeply predatory governance is mitigated, the root causes of the insurgency will remain unaddressed and the state-building project will have disappeared into fiefdoms and lasting conflict. At that point, even negotiations with the Taliban will not bring peace.

Authors

Editor’s note: Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown is currently on the ground in Afghanistan and sent over a dispatch on what she’s seeing.

President Barack Obama is about to make crucial decisions about the number of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2016 and possibly after. His decision will be a vital signal to other U.S. allies in Afghanistan and its neighbors. Recent events in Afghanistan, particularly the Taliban's capture of Kunduz, show how too large a reduction in US military and economic support can hollow out the state-building effort and strengthen the Taliban and many other terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including those labeling themselves daesh. In such a case, collapse of the government and indeed a collapse of the entire political order the United States has sought to build since 2001 are high. Maintaining support at something close to the current level of effort does not guarantee military or political success or that peace negotiations with the Taliban will eventually produce any satisfactory peace. But it buys us time. On the cusp of a dire situation, Afghan politicians equally need to put aside their self-interested hoarding, plotting, and back-stabbing, which are once again running high, and being put ahead of the national interest.

The Taliban’s recent victory in Kunduz is both highly impactful and different from the previous military efforts and victories of the Taliban over the past several years. For the first time since 2001, the Taliban managed to conquer an entire province and for several days hold its capital. The psychological effect in Afghanistan has been tremendous. For a few days, it looked like the entire provinces of Badakshan, Takhar, and Baghlan would also fall. Many Afghans in those provinces started getting ready to leave or began moving south. If all these northern provinces fell, the chances were high, with whispers and blatant loud talk of political coups intensifying for a number of days, that the Afghan government might fall, and perhaps the entire political system collapse., In short, the dangerous and deleterious political and psychological effects are far bigger than those from the Taliban's push in Musa Qala this year or last year. Particularly detrimental and disheartening was the fact that many Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) units, led by weak or corrupt commanders, did not fight, and threw down their arms and ran away. Conversely, the boost of morale to the Taliban and the strengthening of its new leader Mullah Akbar Mansour were great. However, the Taliban also discredited itself with its brutality in Kunduz City.

The Taliban operation to take Kuduz was very well-planned and put together over a period of months, perhaps years. Foreign fighters from Central Asia, China, and Pakistan featured prominently among the mix of some 1,000 fighters, adding much heft to local militias that the Taliban mobilized against the militias of the dominant powerbrokers and the United States, as well as the government-sponsored Afghan Local Police. The support of Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence for the Taliban, which the country has not been able to sever despite a decade of pressure from the United States and more recent engagement from China, significantly augmented the Taliban's capacities.

Kunduz is vital strategic province, with major access roads to various other parts of Afghanistan's north. Those who control the roads—still now the Taliban—also get major revenue from taxing travelers, which is significant along these opium-smuggling routes. It will take time for the Afghan forces to reduce Taliban control and influence along the roads, and large rural areas will be left in the hands of the Taliban for a while. Both in the rural areas and in Kunduz City itself, the Taliban is anchored among local population groups alienated by years of pernicious exclusionary and rapacious politics, which has only intensified since March of this year. Equally, however, many of the local population groups hate the Taliban, have engaged in revenge killings and abuses this week, and are spoiling for more revenge.

Despite the intense drama of the past week, however, Afghanistan has not fallen off the cliff. Takhar and Baghlan have not fallen, nor has all of Badakhshan. The political atmosphere in Kabul is still poisonous, but the various anti-government plots and scheming are dissipating in their intensity and immediacy. On Wednesday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reached out to some of those dissatisfied powerbrokers, who have been salivating for a change in political dispensation. The crisis is not over, neither on the battlefield in Kunduz and many other parts of Afghanistan, nor in the Afghan political system. But it is much easier to exhale on Thursday, October 8th.

United States air support was essential in retaking Kunduz and avoiding more of Badakhshan falling into the hands of the Taliban, precipitating a military domino effect in the north and inflaming the political crisis. Despite the terrible and tragic mistake of the U.S. bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital, maintaining and expanding U.S. air support for the Afghan forces, and allowing for U.S. support beyond in extremis, such as in preventing a similar Taliban offensive, is vital. It is equally important to augment intelligence- assets support. Significant reductions in U.S. assistance, whether that be troops, intelligence, or air support, will greatly increase the chances that another major Taliban success—like that of Kunduz, and perhaps possibly again in Kunduz—will happen again. It would also be accompanied by intensely dangerous political instability.

Equally imperative is that Afghan politicians put aside their self-interested scheming and rally behind the country to enable the government to function, or they will push Afghanistan over the brink into paralysis, intensified insurgency, and outright civil war. In addition to restraining their political and monetary ambitions and their many powerplays in Kabul, they need to recognize that years of abusive, discriminatory, exclusionary governance; extensive corruption; and individual and ethnic patronage and nepotism were the crucial roots of the crisis in Kunduz and elsewhere. These have corroded the Afghan Army and permeate the Afghan Police and anti-Taliban militias. Beyond blaming Pakistan, Afghan politicians and powerbrokers need to take a hard look at their behavior over the recent days and over many years and realize they have much to do to clean their own house to avoid disastrous outcomes for Afghanistan. To satisfy these politicians, many from the north of the country and prominent long-term powerbrokers, President Ghani decided over the past few days to include them more in consultations and power-sharing. Many Afghan people welcome such more inclusive politics, arguing that while the very survival of the country might be at stake, grand governance and anti-corruption ambitions need to be shelved. That may be a necessary bargain, but it is a Faustian one. Not all corruption or nepotism can or will disappear. But unless outright rapacious, exclusionary, and deeply predatory governance is mitigated, the root causes of the insurgency will remain unaddressed and the state-building project will have disappeared into fiefdoms and lasting conflict. At that point, even negotiations with the Taliban will not bring peace.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/07/01-india-middle-east-relations-barakat-pethiyagoda?rssid=trip+reports{EF885C74-1FC1-435B-8938-3E35CD9FC37E}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/98716254/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Not-just-a-gas-station-Indias-broader-interests-in-the-Middle-EastNot just a gas station: India's broader interests in the Middle East

India and Middle Eastern states—particularly in the Gulf—have long enjoyed strategic and mutually beneficial relationships. For most of the period since independence, India has seen the Middle East almost entirely as a commercial relationship, driven by flows of energy and migrant labor. India’s “hands-off” approach—secured by Washington’s commitment to ensuring the free flow of oil worldwide—has suited India’s traditional non-aligned and non-interference foreign policy, which in turn boost its reputation in the Middle East.

Yet major changes in global, regional, and even internal Middle Eastern politics call for a new interpretation of the strategic importance of the Middle East to India and vice versa. The United States has slowly tried to shift away from the Middle East, even as China enhances its geopolitical and economic ties there through multi-billion dollar investment deals and defense agreements.

Indian leaders cannot help but wonder if mounting instability in the Middle East will affect oil imports (India imported roughly 60 percent of its oil from the region in 2014), or the livelihoods of the 7 million Indian nationals sending home $40 billion in remittances annually. For the Brookings Doha Center, the one-year anniversary of the Modi government seemed an opportune time to visit India and investigate the emerging global power’s changing perceptions of the Middle East.

Everywhere but the Middle East

In 2014, the controversial then-Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi led the nationalist, religious-conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to an unprecedented election victory, winning 52 percent of the seats. Since their platform emphasized national economic development, most commentators have been surprised by the extent of the government’s foreign policy focus in its first year.

But while his government focused on India’s immediate South Asian neighborhood—as well as East and Southeast Asia and the West—there has been much less focus on the Middle East. Modi indicated he will visit the region in his second year; interestingly, his first declared destination is not a key oil producer, but Israel.

No one can deny the importance of India’s relationship with Israel, particularly for military support, technology transfer, and agricultural and irrigation development. Still, the visit will undoubtedly affect relations across the Middle East—even though, according to a former senior Indian ambassador to the region, Modi seems to think that the “Arab States are too busy fighting each other and Iran to worry about his visit.”

Through recent meetings with members of civil society, diplomats, and former officials in New Delhi—and with the help of our colleagues at Brookings India—we developed a more nuanced view of India’s ties to the Middle East. Although the upcoming visit to Israel can still (and should) be employed to deepen India’s constructive engagement with the broader region, the visit cannot stand on its own. Rather, it should form part of a broader plan to renew India’s relationship with the region.

The challenges facing India and the Middle East, and the need to formulate a holistic engagement strategy, formed the basis of an informative panel discussion held in collaboration between the Brookings Doha Center, Brookings India, and others. The debate that ensued made it clear that the country’s enormous diaspora, combined with its positive image in the region, helps ensure that countries across the Middle East are open to enhanced relations.

Security cooperation is one key area of engagement. In the last decade, India has signed unilateral defense agreements with a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman. At the same time, India has become Israel’s largest arms buyer. In broader terms, New Delhi needs to be more proactive in supporting order and stability in the region—this will incur fewer costs than waiting until conflicts boil over and threaten the Indian diaspora in the region.

Additionally, India can share its experiences on strengthening pluralism and tolerance with Middle Eastern states struggling with sectarian divisions—experiences likely to be more relatable than any Western model. Despite sporadic outbreaks of communal violence, the country of 1.25 billion has long stood as a model for pluralist democracy in the developing world. India has accomplished this in the face of mass poverty and immense diversity along cultural, religious, and ethnic lines.

India can also offer its technical expertise in a number of ways. Having rapidly developed professional services, education, and knowledge economy sectors, it could provide lessons for Middle Eastern states looking to diversify their economies.

Tapping expertise

Our visit to New Delhi also revealed the substantial and growing expertise in Indian civil society and, in particular, policy think tanks. This force can be harnessed to further relations with the Middle East and offer technical expertise to Middle Eastern partners.

As it embarks on re-examining its relationship with the region, India’s government would benefit significantly from better utilizing these existing resources. Given short staffing at the Indian Foreign Service and Indian Administrative Service (with any growth in personnel outpaced by India’s rapidly expanding foreign interests), it should draw on expertise at the Observer Research Foundation, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Brookings India, and the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERRI), among other organizations. If India aspires to rise to great power status, it should learn from the world’s only superpower: the United States, whose government is unparalleled in its ability and willingness to utilize diverse external sources of expertise and advice.

The wealth of expertise available in India underpins opportunities for future collaboration with researchers from the Middle East. Such research will help to better understand the contours of the relationship and can produce recommendations for policymakers and civil society on how to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for the peoples of both regions.

Authors

India and Middle Eastern states—particularly in the Gulf—have long enjoyed strategic and mutually beneficial relationships. For most of the period since independence, India has seen the Middle East almost entirely as a commercial relationship, driven by flows of energy and migrant labor. India’s “hands-off” approach—secured by Washington’s commitment to ensuring the free flow of oil worldwide—has suited India’s traditional non-aligned and non-interference foreign policy, which in turn boost its reputation in the Middle East.

Yet major changes in global, regional, and even internal Middle Eastern politics call for a new interpretation of the strategic importance of the Middle East to India and vice versa. The United States has slowly tried to shift away from the Middle East, even as China enhances its geopolitical and economic ties there through multi-billion dollar investment deals and defense agreements.

Indian leaders cannot help but wonder if mounting instability in the Middle East will affect oil imports (India imported roughly 60 percent of its oil from the region in 2014), or the livelihoods of the 7 million Indian nationals sending home $40 billion in remittances annually. For the Brookings Doha Center, the one-year anniversary of the Modi government seemed an opportune time to visit India and investigate the emerging global power’s changing perceptions of the Middle East.

Everywhere but the Middle East

In 2014, the controversial then-Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi led the nationalist, religious-conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to an unprecedented election victory, winning 52 percent of the seats. Since their platform emphasized national economic development, most commentators have been surprised by the extent of the government’s foreign policy focus in its first year.

But while his government focused on India’s immediate South Asian neighborhood—as well as East and Southeast Asia and the West—there has been much less focus on the Middle East. Modi indicated he will visit the region in his second year; interestingly, his first declared destination is not a key oil producer, but Israel.

No one can deny the importance of India’s relationship with Israel, particularly for military support, technology transfer, and agricultural and irrigation development. Still, the visit will undoubtedly affect relations across the Middle East—even though, according to a former senior Indian ambassador to the region, Modi seems to think that the “Arab States are too busy fighting each other and Iran to worry about his visit.”

Through recent meetings with members of civil society, diplomats, and former officials in New Delhi—and with the help of our colleagues at Brookings India—we developed a more nuanced view of India’s ties to the Middle East. Although the upcoming visit to Israel can still (and should) be employed to deepen India’s constructive engagement with the broader region, the visit cannot stand on its own. Rather, it should form part of a broader plan to renew India’s relationship with the region.

The challenges facing India and the Middle East, and the need to formulate a holistic engagement strategy, formed the basis of an informative panel discussion held in collaboration between the Brookings Doha Center, Brookings India, and others. The debate that ensued made it clear that the country’s enormous diaspora, combined with its positive image in the region, helps ensure that countries across the Middle East are open to enhanced relations.

Security cooperation is one key area of engagement. In the last decade, India has signed unilateral defense agreements with a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman. At the same time, India has become Israel’s largest arms buyer. In broader terms, New Delhi needs to be more proactive in supporting order and stability in the region—this will incur fewer costs than waiting until conflicts boil over and threaten the Indian diaspora in the region.

Additionally, India can share its experiences on strengthening pluralism and tolerance with Middle Eastern states struggling with sectarian divisions—experiences likely to be more relatable than any Western model. Despite sporadic outbreaks of communal violence, the country of 1.25 billion has long stood as a model for pluralist democracy in the developing world. India has accomplished this in the face of mass poverty and immense diversity along cultural, religious, and ethnic lines.

India can also offer its technical expertise in a number of ways. Having rapidly developed professional services, education, and knowledge economy sectors, it could provide lessons for Middle Eastern states looking to diversify their economies.

Tapping expertise

Our visit to New Delhi also revealed the substantial and growing expertise in Indian civil society and, in particular, policy think tanks. This force can be harnessed to further relations with the Middle East and offer technical expertise to Middle Eastern partners.

As it embarks on re-examining its relationship with the region, India’s government would benefit significantly from better utilizing these existing resources. Given short staffing at the Indian Foreign Service and Indian Administrative Service (with any growth in personnel outpaced by India’s rapidly expanding foreign interests), it should draw on expertise at the Observer Research Foundation, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Brookings India, and the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERRI), among other organizations. If India aspires to rise to great power status, it should learn from the world’s only superpower: the United States, whose government is unparalleled in its ability and willingness to utilize diverse external sources of expertise and advice.

The wealth of expertise available in India underpins opportunities for future collaboration with researchers from the Middle East. Such research will help to better understand the contours of the relationship and can produce recommendations for policymakers and civil society on how to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for the peoples of both regions.

I spent last week in Hong Kong, talking to a range of people about the tense situation there. The views ranged from optimism to pessimism. Each person struck a different balance between hope and fear. The immediate challenge is a find a way to end without violence the occupation of three major urban thorough fares by the protesters of the Occupy Movement (aka Umbrella Movement). Even if that happens, it will be necessary to try work out arrangements for the election of the chief executive in 2017 that both stay within the parameters that the Chinese government laid down on August 31 this year and give the public that opposes those parameters a meaningful choice in picking their leaders. That is a tall order. But without broad agreement on those arrangements, sufficient to secure the support of two-thirds of the Legislative Council, Beijing has promised that the next chief executive will again be picked by a 1,200-member selection committee instead of on the one-person, one-vote basis it had promised. If that happens, more political instability will likely follow.

I came away from my visit with these six observations.

1) Life goes on for most Hong Kong residents, even as the protests continue. People go to work, get their children to and from school and socialize on nights and weekends, as they have always done. The streets that the Occupy protesters still hold (in Admiralty, between the east and west sides of Hong Kong island; Causeway Bay, a major shopping area on Hong Kong island; and Mongkok, at the very center of Kowloon peninsula) are a relatively small area of the total territory. But those streets are major traffic arteries. Their continued blockage has a ripple effect on anyone who relies on surface transportation to get from here to there. Only those residents who have the luxury of relying on crowded subways are spared inconvenience. Whatever the views of Hong Kong people about the protests, however, they are doing their best to cope.

2) Political conflict in Hong Kong is not just about the mechanisms for picking the chief executive and members of the Legislative Council (LegCo). Also at play is theimpact of long-standing economic policies on society. Inequality in Hong Kong is perhaps the most severe of any economy in the world. The middle class feels squeezed – literally when it comes to the tight housing market and figuratively regarding the search for jobs. Young people are particularly pessimistic about their life chances. Globalization and technological change certainly have helped create this situation, as they have in most advanced economies. But competition from an increasingly capable Chinese economy is also at play, particularly on the jobs front. So too is the preferential access of Hong Kong’s economic elite to political power, through the structure created by the British colonial government and consolidated by Beijing before Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. It is this political structure that Hong Kong’s democratic camp and the Occupy Movement would like to democratize.

The protests for constitutional reform we have seen this year are a symptom of these underlying social divisions. No matter what happens on constitutional reform, the policy roots of those divisions will have to be addressed. Yet constitutional reform is now a separate and independent issue of political contention.

3) The three occupations are different in character. The one in Causeway Bay is small and, it seems, is dominated by students. The one in Admiralty, also dominated by students, is the largest and takes up stretches of two east-west roads. It is also the one that makes the strongest political statement, because it is close to the offices of the Hong Kong government and LegCo. Indeed, it is not possible to get to those buildings without seeing the sweep of the protest encampment. The third site, Mongkok, is socially mixed and reflects a dark side of Hong Kong society. That area has a significant Triad (gangster) presence, and those groups have engaged in some serious attacks on the local occupiers. For now, protesters and the police peacefully coexist in Causeway Bay and Admiralty, while Mongkok is more complicated and conflict-prone.

4) Ending the occupations in a way that is non-violent and acceptable to the contending parties is the focus of current attention. People are aware that the Chinese government, which ultimately calls the shots concerning this crisis, may be holding back on repressive action until after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Beijing in the second week of November and President Obama’s one-day bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping right after. Also hanging over the Hong Kong standoff is the memory of the Tiananmen crisis of the spring of 1989 and the violent way it ended.

There is a widespread belief in Hong Kong that an end to the occupation would be in the public interest. The issue is who concedes more and who concedes first. The Occupy Movement, after taking an idealistic, moral stand and receiving significant public support, does not wish to stand down without getting something tangible for its efforts. Moreover, it is a coalition of various groups and tendencies without an integrated leadership, which makes it difficult to make strategic decisions and then effectively carry out whatever commitments it might make to the government. For its part, the Hong Kong government is constrained by the parameters already set down by Beijing on how candidates will be selected for the 2017 election for chief executive. And the gap between the two sides remains wide: the Occupy forces are holding out for “public nomination” by a relatively small percentage of Hong Kong voters; Beijing and the Hong Kong government have consistently rejected that approach.

The first step towards bridging that gap came last week, on October 21, when senior officials of the Hong Kong government met in a televised dialogue with leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the organizations at the core of the Occupy Movement. Nothing was resolved, but that is to be expected in the first round of any talks when each side presents its opening position. The government floated some ideas to demonstrate that some flexibility was possible within China’s parameters. It is hoped that more dialogue sessions will occur soon, and that they will ultimately facilitate an end the current standoff.

5) It seems that theleadership of the Hong Kong government is not speaking with one voice. On the one hand, the senior officials who spoke at the dialogue session acknowledged the idealism and sincerity of the students. They laid out in a steady and non-confrontational way why existing legal and policy provisions ruled out some of the movement’s proposals, and how a peaceful resolution to the crisis was in the interests of the whole community. They offered a few ideas in the hope of conveying flexibility and good faith. (The students were similarly professional and substantive in their presentations.)

The day before, however, Chief Executive C.Y. Leung, who is disliked by many Hong Kong residents, adopted a different approach and tone in an interview with foreign media. He essentially confirmed the view of the democratic camp that the local political system is, and should be, biased in favor of the business elite. According to the New York Times account of the interview, Leung argued that screening candidates by the Beijing-designed nominating committee would be a check against their giving into lower-class pressure for welfare state, and so protect the political interests of business. He reportedly said, “You have to take care of all the sectors in Hong Kong as much as you can, and if it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month. Then you would end up with that kind of [populist] politics and policies.” Stephen Vines responded in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on October 24: “Leung adequately reflects the contempt he has for the ordinary people of Hong Kong and fails to understand that in this community, largely composed of immigrants and the offspring of immigrants, the work and self-help ethic is very strong indeed. The people he and his colleagues despise are pragmatic and sensible. So why, then, does he believe that they would rush like sheep into an orgy of emptying the public coffers?”

Not surprisingly, there is a range of views on whether the loose leadership of the Occupy Movement and the Hong Kong government (with Beijing in the background) can find a formula for ending the occupation of public spaces that is face-saving for all concerned. Optimists remain hopeful, but cautiously so. Pessimists worry that factions on each side prefer confrontation to compromise.

6) Even if the occupations end, it is still an open question whether acceptable arrangements for the chief executive election can be formulated that are sufficient to head off new, mass protests. Several questions are relevant here.

If a deal was thus possible, why didn’t it happen? Some Hong Kong observers believe that the Chinese government was unwilling to run even a small risk of a competitive election that produced a winner who might challenge Chinese interests. Others believe that it was spooked by the original Occupy Central movement or turned off by the tactics and demands of the democratic camp. These specific reasons suggest that Beijing was not opposed to competitive elections per se but just to one in 2017. If that contest had gone well, then a liberalization of the rules for future elections might have been possible. Indeed, in recent statements Hong Kong officials indicate that the electoral arrangements for 2017 can evolve thereafter.

Is it possible to liberalize the operation of the nominating committee so that the 2017 election so is “competitive enough”? Some Hong Kong observers are skeptical, on the grounds that screening by a committee dominated by the supporters of Beijing will by definition limit voters’ choice too much. Others are more optimistic, believing that the nominating committee can be made more representative of Hong Kong society, with procedures that make possible the nomination of a leader of democratic camp. Moreover, the optimists say, the dynamics of a popular election almost ensure that even conservative candidates would have to appeal to voters in the democratic camp (who, by the way, constitute 55 to 60 percent of the total vote in the most representative LegCo elections). Hong Kong government officials have signaled a willingness to take liberalizing steps, but the democratic camp will withhold judgment until they see the details.

In my view, there are two related tests of the value of a liberalized nominating committee. The first is whether a member of the democratic camp is actually picked to run. The second is whether the election campaign fosters a serious discussion of the government policies that have created high income and wealth inequality and fostered such deep political alienation and division. The two are obviously related, but a contest that ignores fundamental policy issues will not inspire public confidence in the electoral system, no matter how competitive and democratic it may become.

The immediate priority, however, is finding a way to terminate the current standoff and so avoid the possibility of a coercive end to the crisis. In a climate of deep mutual mistrust between the two sides and of growing physical fatigue and emotional stress, that will not be easy.

Authors

I spent last week in Hong Kong, talking to a range of people about the tense situation there. The views ranged from optimism to pessimism. Each person struck a different balance between hope and fear. The immediate challenge is a find a way to end without violence the occupation of three major urban thorough fares by the protesters of the Occupy Movement (aka Umbrella Movement). Even if that happens, it will be necessary to try work out arrangements for the election of the chief executive in 2017 that both stay within the parameters that the Chinese government laid down on August 31 this year and give the public that opposes those parameters a meaningful choice in picking their leaders. That is a tall order. But without broad agreement on those arrangements, sufficient to secure the support of two-thirds of the Legislative Council, Beijing has promised that the next chief executive will again be picked by a 1,200-member selection committee instead of on the one-person, one-vote basis it had promised. If that happens, more political instability will likely follow.

I came away from my visit with these six observations.

1) Life goes on for most Hong Kong residents, even as the protests continue. People go to work, get their children to and from school and socialize on nights and weekends, as they have always done. The streets that the Occupy protesters still hold (in Admiralty, between the east and west sides of Hong Kong island; Causeway Bay, a major shopping area on Hong Kong island; and Mongkok, at the very center of Kowloon peninsula) are a relatively small area of the total territory. But those streets are major traffic arteries. Their continued blockage has a ripple effect on anyone who relies on surface transportation to get from here to there. Only those residents who have the luxury of relying on crowded subways are spared inconvenience. Whatever the views of Hong Kong people about the protests, however, they are doing their best to cope.

2) Political conflict in Hong Kong is not just about the mechanisms for picking the chief executive and members of the Legislative Council (LegCo). Also at play is theimpact of long-standing economic policies on society. Inequality in Hong Kong is perhaps the most severe of any economy in the world. The middle class feels squeezed – literally when it comes to the tight housing market and figuratively regarding the search for jobs. Young people are particularly pessimistic about their life chances. Globalization and technological change certainly have helped create this situation, as they have in most advanced economies. But competition from an increasingly capable Chinese economy is also at play, particularly on the jobs front. So too is the preferential access of Hong Kong’s economic elite to political power, through the structure created by the British colonial government and consolidated by Beijing before Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. It is this political structure that Hong Kong’s democratic camp and the Occupy Movement would like to democratize.

The protests for constitutional reform we have seen this year are a symptom of these underlying social divisions. No matter what happens on constitutional reform, the policy roots of those divisions will have to be addressed. Yet constitutional reform is now a separate and independent issue of political contention.

3) The three occupations are different in character. The one in Causeway Bay is small and, it seems, is dominated by students. The one in Admiralty, also dominated by students, is the largest and takes up stretches of two east-west roads. It is also the one that makes the strongest political statement, because it is close to the offices of the Hong Kong government and LegCo. Indeed, it is not possible to get to those buildings without seeing the sweep of the protest encampment. The third site, Mongkok, is socially mixed and reflects a dark side of Hong Kong society. That area has a significant Triad (gangster) presence, and those groups have engaged in some serious attacks on the local occupiers. For now, protesters and the police peacefully coexist in Causeway Bay and Admiralty, while Mongkok is more complicated and conflict-prone.

4) Ending the occupations in a way that is non-violent and acceptable to the contending parties is the focus of current attention. People are aware that the Chinese government, which ultimately calls the shots concerning this crisis, may be holding back on repressive action until after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Beijing in the second week of November and President Obama’s one-day bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping right after. Also hanging over the Hong Kong standoff is the memory of the Tiananmen crisis of the spring of 1989 and the violent way it ended.

There is a widespread belief in Hong Kong that an end to the occupation would be in the public interest. The issue is who concedes more and who concedes first. The Occupy Movement, after taking an idealistic, moral stand and receiving significant public support, does not wish to stand down without getting something tangible for its efforts. Moreover, it is a coalition of various groups and tendencies without an integrated leadership, which makes it difficult to make strategic decisions and then effectively carry out whatever commitments it might make to the government. For its part, the Hong Kong government is constrained by the parameters already set down by Beijing on how candidates will be selected for the 2017 election for chief executive. And the gap between the two sides remains wide: the Occupy forces are holding out for “public nomination” by a relatively small percentage of Hong Kong voters; Beijing and the Hong Kong government have consistently rejected that approach.

The first step towards bridging that gap came last week, on October 21, when senior officials of the Hong Kong government met in a televised dialogue with leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the organizations at the core of the Occupy Movement. Nothing was resolved, but that is to be expected in the first round of any talks when each side presents its opening position. The government floated some ideas to demonstrate that some flexibility was possible within China’s parameters. It is hoped that more dialogue sessions will occur soon, and that they will ultimately facilitate an end the current standoff.

5) It seems that theleadership of the Hong Kong government is not speaking with one voice. On the one hand, the senior officials who spoke at the dialogue session acknowledged the idealism and sincerity of the students. They laid out in a steady and non-confrontational way why existing legal and policy provisions ruled out some of the movement’s proposals, and how a peaceful resolution to the crisis was in the interests of the whole community. They offered a few ideas in the hope of conveying flexibility and good faith. (The students were similarly professional and substantive in their presentations.)

The day before, however, Chief Executive C.Y. Leung, who is disliked by many Hong Kong residents, adopted a different approach and tone in an interview with foreign media. He essentially confirmed the view of the democratic camp that the local political system is, and should be, biased in favor of the business elite. According to the New York Times account of the interview, Leung argued that screening candidates by the Beijing-designed nominating committee would be a check against their giving into lower-class pressure for welfare state, and so protect the political interests of business. He reportedly said, “You have to take care of all the sectors in Hong Kong as much as you can, and if it’s entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month. Then you would end up with that kind of [populist] politics and policies.” Stephen Vines responded in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on October 24: “Leung adequately reflects the contempt he has for the ordinary people of Hong Kong and fails to understand that in this community, largely composed of immigrants and the offspring of immigrants, the work and self-help ethic is very strong indeed. The people he and his colleagues despise are pragmatic and sensible. So why, then, does he believe that they would rush like sheep into an orgy of emptying the public coffers?”

Not surprisingly, there is a range of views on whether the loose leadership of the Occupy Movement and the Hong Kong government (with Beijing in the background) can find a formula for ending the occupation of public spaces that is face-saving for all concerned. Optimists remain hopeful, but cautiously so. Pessimists worry that factions on each side prefer confrontation to compromise.

6) Even if the occupations end, it is still an open question whether acceptable arrangements for the chief executive election can be formulated that are sufficient to head off new, mass protests. Several questions are relevant here.

If a deal was thus possible, why didn’t it happen? Some Hong Kong observers believe that the Chinese government was unwilling to run even a small risk of a competitive election that produced a winner who might challenge Chinese interests. Others believe that it was spooked by the original Occupy Central movement or turned off by the tactics and demands of the democratic camp. These specific reasons suggest that Beijing was not opposed to competitive elections per se but just to one in 2017. If that contest had gone well, then a liberalization of the rules for future elections might have been possible. Indeed, in recent statements Hong Kong officials indicate that the electoral arrangements for 2017 can evolve thereafter.

Is it possible to liberalize the operation of the nominating committee so that the 2017 election so is “competitive enough”? Some Hong Kong observers are skeptical, on the grounds that screening by a committee dominated by the supporters of Beijing will by definition limit voters’ choice too much. Others are more optimistic, believing that the nominating committee can be made more representative of Hong Kong society, with procedures that make possible the nomination of a leader of democratic camp. Moreover, the optimists say, the dynamics of a popular election almost ensure that even conservative candidates would have to appeal to voters in the democratic camp (who, by the way, constitute 55 to 60 percent of the total vote in the most representative LegCo elections). Hong Kong government officials have signaled a willingness to take liberalizing steps, but the democratic camp will withhold judgment until they see the details.

In my view, there are two related tests of the value of a liberalized nominating committee. The first is whether a member of the democratic camp is actually picked to run. The second is whether the election campaign fosters a serious discussion of the government policies that have created high income and wealth inequality and fostered such deep political alienation and division. The two are obviously related, but a contest that ignores fundamental policy issues will not inspire public confidence in the electoral system, no matter how competitive and democratic it may become.

The immediate priority, however, is finding a way to terminate the current standoff and so avoid the possibility of a coercive end to the crisis. In a climate of deep mutual mistrust between the two sides and of growing physical fatigue and emotional stress, that will not be easy.

Ukraine clings to a shaky ceasefire, with uncertain prospects for a durable peace process ahead, leaving many in Kyiv unsure about what will happen next. While a marked sense of national identity has taken hold (thanks to Vladimir Putin), people express frustration that the government has done little on domestic reform. The Rada (parliament) elections are set for October 26. They hopefully will produce a coalition that can support an active government reform effort; the risk is that they will result in a divided, muddled body that will hinder Ukraine’s ability to meet the challenges before it.

While President Poroshenko seems committed to seeking a peaceful settlement, and virtually everyone agrees that Kyiv cannot resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine by military means, no one showed great optimism about securing a settlement. There is a general sentiment that the United States should do more to support Ukraine, including by providing arms, and a bitter sense that the Budapest memorandum on security assurances turned out to be an empty piece of paper.

A September 11-13 visit to Kyiv to attend the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference and hold sidebar conversations produced a number of impressions regarding developments in Ukraine and the challenges confronting that country.

A Stronger National Identity

On a warm late summer’s day, Kyiv hardly seemed like the capital of a country that has fought a bitter conflict against separatists and their Russian allies. People, young and old, crowded the streets, and sidewalk cafes ran a brisk business. That makes a point that sometimes gets lost in the West: the conflict over the past five months has been confined to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

One noticeable change in Kyiv was the explosion of blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, on fences, buildings and flagpoles. As one Ukrainian scholar put it, “Mr. Putin has fulfilled the dream of Ukrainian nationalists” by forging a strong sense of Ukrainian national identity, infused with a heavy dose of anti-Russian sentiment. Speaking on a YES panel, former Prime Minister Tymoshenko called Putin the “best integrator” of Ukrainian opinion in favor of joining the European Union and NATO.

A Ukrainian official privately commented that public sentiment was not just anti-Putin, but anti-Russian. Ukrainians bitterly noted that the Russian population did not oppose or speak out against what the Russian president had done. (That cannot be healthy for Ukraine-Russia relations in the long run.)

There was no consensus on the motives behind Russia’s actions. At one end of the spectrum, Prime Minister Yatseniuk told the YES conference that Mr. Putin’s goal was to recreate the Soviet Union. Others saw a more modest objective: Mr. Putin sought to have leverage over Kyiv, in particular, to affect Ukraine’s foreign policy choices.

A Ceasefire and What Next?

The week-old ceasefire appeared to be holding in many places, though reports of shooting came daily. Some felt that Mr. Poroshenko had no choice but to accept a ceasefire, given that regular Russian army units had invaded in August and dramatically turned the tide on the battlefield. One official thought that Mr. Putin also welcomed the ceasefire, as Russian dead numbered in triple digits, which presented the Russians a delicate question at home.

The ceasefire appears fragile. Mr. Poroshenko’s focus nevertheless is on getting a settlement process underway. He told the YES gathering that his special status law to be introduced in the Rada the week of September 15 would incorporate decentralization—transferring some power, budget authority and the right to give language an official status to regional and municipal governments—but would protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Key issues of military and national policy would stay at the national level. The public will follow these questions closely. Some thought that a more nationalist electorate could be a factor that would limit the president’s freedom of maneuver, e.g., he had to avoid anything that looked like a “bad” deal for Ukraine.

A number of people expressed unease about the “Normandy format” (Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany) that Mr. Poroshenko has used with Mr. Putin, French President Hollande and German Chancellor Merkel. While Ukrainian confidence in Ms. Merkel has grown, several would prefer that the United States and European Union participate, as they had in the mid-April Geneva ministerial meeting.

With Mr. Poroshenko’s attention centered on stabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine, Crimea has been deferred to the longer term. Ukrainian officials publicly pledged that they would regain Crimea. But Mr. Poroshenko said Kyiv would use an “economic, democratic competition” to win back the minds of the Crimean population.

Several people privately questioned whether Ukraine should consider letting Donetsk and Luhansk go, perhaps as the result of a second referendum, this time conducted under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe auspices. That would be a longer-term question; neither Mr. Poroshenko nor any other serious politician could suggest the idea now. (If Mr. Putin’s goal is leverage over Kyiv, he presumably would not be satisfied with Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk if the remainder of Ukraine continues drawing closer to the European Union.)

More Expected from the United States

There was a general feeling that the United States, as a signatory to the Budapest memorandum, which gave Ukraine security assurances in return for giving up its nuclear weapons, should do more to assist Ukraine. In his YES talk, former President Kuchma (who signed the memorandum for Ukraine) said that Ukraine had been “cheated.” Mr. Yatseniuk referred to the “notorious” Budapest memorandum.

The question of U.S. arms transfers arose in several private conversations. Virtually all Ukrainian interlocutors who addressed the topic felt that Washington owed that to Ukraine. Asked about the risk of Russian escalation in response, they noted that Ukraine would run that risk. Mr. Putin had already escalated the conflict significantly. Several expressed confidence that, if it had to, Ukraine could successfully resist Russia; Mr. Putin “might be able to get into Kyiv in two weeks, but he would not be able to get out.”

European Union and NATO

The European Union and Ukraine-EU association agreement enjoy broad support in Kyiv. The surprise announcement that implementation of part of the free trade agreement would be postponed until December 2015 caught almost everyone by surprise. Mr. Yatseniuk explained it as advantageous to Ukrainian companies, as the European Union would lower its tariffs shortly after ratification (scheduled for a vote in both the Rada and European Parliament on September 16), while Ukraine could maintain tariffs on EU imports for another 15 months.

Public support for NATO is rising in Ukraine, and several YES panelists addressed NATO membership. Ms. Tymoshenko said Ukraine should have made NATO membership a part of the Budapest memorandum. Mr. Yatseniuk noted that, with Russia’s invasion, NATO offered the only vehicle for defending Ukraine, though he understood that the Alliance was not ready for Ukraine to apply—an understanding that others privately acknowledged.

Where’s the Reform?

Businessmen and civil society leaders at YES panels and in private conversations expressed great frustration with the lack of progress on economic reform and anti-corruption efforts. The government on its own could abolish a number of unneeded regulatory bodies that only created red tape and corruption opportunities, but it had not, just as there had been no major corruption prosecutions.

Mr. Poroshenko acknowledged the point, saying he would try to accelerate reform efforts. Mr. Yatseniuk agreed that the government had not yet advanced major anti-corruption reform but stoutly defended the government’s record.

Mr. Yatseniuk painted an (overly?) optimistic picture of Ukraine’s energy situation as winter loomed. He said Ukraine had 17 billion cubic meters in storage (the country recently has burnt about 50 billion cubic meters per year) and had begun importing coal from as far away as South Africa to make up for lost coal production in Donetsk.

The Rada Elections and What Comes After

Rada elections are scheduled for October 26. Mr. Poroshenko told his audience that Ukraine could prevail only if united but would stay united even with the Rada elections. Perhaps, but there is some reason for concern that the elections could produce a divided or muddled parliament. Mr. Poroshenko and Mr. Yatseniuk failed to agree on running together in a single party, though the prime minister said he was ready to sign a coalition agreement even before the elections.

There are a number of wild cards. According to opinion polls, Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party will have little trouble clearing the five-percent threshold for the party list vote. It is not clear how Donetsk and Luhansk will be handled in the elections; one former official expressed concern that Mr. Putin could use elections there to form “his” bloc in the Rada. Another official pointed out that leaders of the volunteer battalions could trade on their hero images and reputations for straight talk to do well in individual constituency votes.

Ukraine needs a strong, stable Rada coalition following the October elections that will work with a president and prime minister who are on the same page to implement key reforms and anti-corruption measures, as well as to manage the conflict in eastern Ukraine and a settlement process. If Mr. Poroshenko and the prime minister are not in sync, or if a divided Rada falls back into the petty political in-fighting and non-transparent dealings that characterized so many Radas before it, Kyiv will have a difficult time addressing the many challenges confronting it. And it will have a much harder time securing stronger support from the United States and Europe if the West feels that it has seen the movie before … and already knows the unhappy ending.

Note: The YES conference is sponsored by the Victor Pinchuk Fund, which is a Brookings donor.

Authors

Ukraine clings to a shaky ceasefire, with uncertain prospects for a durable peace process ahead, leaving many in Kyiv unsure about what will happen next. While a marked sense of national identity has taken hold (thanks to Vladimir Putin), people express frustration that the government has done little on domestic reform. The Rada (parliament) elections are set for October 26. They hopefully will produce a coalition that can support an active government reform effort; the risk is that they will result in a divided, muddled body that will hinder Ukraine’s ability to meet the challenges before it.

While President Poroshenko seems committed to seeking a peaceful settlement, and virtually everyone agrees that Kyiv cannot resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine by military means, no one showed great optimism about securing a settlement. There is a general sentiment that the United States should do more to support Ukraine, including by providing arms, and a bitter sense that the Budapest memorandum on security assurances turned out to be an empty piece of paper.

A September 11-13 visit to Kyiv to attend the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference and hold sidebar conversations produced a number of impressions regarding developments in Ukraine and the challenges confronting that country.

A Stronger National Identity

On a warm late summer’s day, Kyiv hardly seemed like the capital of a country that has fought a bitter conflict against separatists and their Russian allies. People, young and old, crowded the streets, and sidewalk cafes ran a brisk business. That makes a point that sometimes gets lost in the West: the conflict over the past five months has been confined to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

One noticeable change in Kyiv was the explosion of blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, on fences, buildings and flagpoles. As one Ukrainian scholar put it, “Mr. Putin has fulfilled the dream of Ukrainian nationalists” by forging a strong sense of Ukrainian national identity, infused with a heavy dose of anti-Russian sentiment. Speaking on a YES panel, former Prime Minister Tymoshenko called Putin the “best integrator” of Ukrainian opinion in favor of joining the European Union and NATO.

A Ukrainian official privately commented that public sentiment was not just anti-Putin, but anti-Russian. Ukrainians bitterly noted that the Russian population did not oppose or speak out against what the Russian president had done. (That cannot be healthy for Ukraine-Russia relations in the long run.)

There was no consensus on the motives behind Russia’s actions. At one end of the spectrum, Prime Minister Yatseniuk told the YES conference that Mr. Putin’s goal was to recreate the Soviet Union. Others saw a more modest objective: Mr. Putin sought to have leverage over Kyiv, in particular, to affect Ukraine’s foreign policy choices.

A Ceasefire and What Next?

The week-old ceasefire appeared to be holding in many places, though reports of shooting came daily. Some felt that Mr. Poroshenko had no choice but to accept a ceasefire, given that regular Russian army units had invaded in August and dramatically turned the tide on the battlefield. One official thought that Mr. Putin also welcomed the ceasefire, as Russian dead numbered in triple digits, which presented the Russians a delicate question at home.

The ceasefire appears fragile. Mr. Poroshenko’s focus nevertheless is on getting a settlement process underway. He told the YES gathering that his special status law to be introduced in the Rada the week of September 15 would incorporate decentralization—transferring some power, budget authority and the right to give language an official status to regional and municipal governments—but would protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Key issues of military and national policy would stay at the national level. The public will follow these questions closely. Some thought that a more nationalist electorate could be a factor that would limit the president’s freedom of maneuver, e.g., he had to avoid anything that looked like a “bad” deal for Ukraine.

A number of people expressed unease about the “Normandy format” (Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany) that Mr. Poroshenko has used with Mr. Putin, French President Hollande and German Chancellor Merkel. While Ukrainian confidence in Ms. Merkel has grown, several would prefer that the United States and European Union participate, as they had in the mid-April Geneva ministerial meeting.

With Mr. Poroshenko’s attention centered on stabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine, Crimea has been deferred to the longer term. Ukrainian officials publicly pledged that they would regain Crimea. But Mr. Poroshenko said Kyiv would use an “economic, democratic competition” to win back the minds of the Crimean population.

Several people privately questioned whether Ukraine should consider letting Donetsk and Luhansk go, perhaps as the result of a second referendum, this time conducted under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe auspices. That would be a longer-term question; neither Mr. Poroshenko nor any other serious politician could suggest the idea now. (If Mr. Putin’s goal is leverage over Kyiv, he presumably would not be satisfied with Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk if the remainder of Ukraine continues drawing closer to the European Union.)

More Expected from the United States

There was a general feeling that the United States, as a signatory to the Budapest memorandum, which gave Ukraine security assurances in return for giving up its nuclear weapons, should do more to assist Ukraine. In his YES talk, former President Kuchma (who signed the memorandum for Ukraine) said that Ukraine had been “cheated.” Mr. Yatseniuk referred to the “notorious” Budapest memorandum.

The question of U.S. arms transfers arose in several private conversations. Virtually all Ukrainian interlocutors who addressed the topic felt that Washington owed that to Ukraine. Asked about the risk of Russian escalation in response, they noted that Ukraine would run that risk. Mr. Putin had already escalated the conflict significantly. Several expressed confidence that, if it had to, Ukraine could successfully resist Russia; Mr. Putin “might be able to get into Kyiv in two weeks, but he would not be able to get out.”

European Union and NATO

The European Union and Ukraine-EU association agreement enjoy broad support in Kyiv. The surprise announcement that implementation of part of the free trade agreement would be postponed until December 2015 caught almost everyone by surprise. Mr. Yatseniuk explained it as advantageous to Ukrainian companies, as the European Union would lower its tariffs shortly after ratification (scheduled for a vote in both the Rada and European Parliament on September 16), while Ukraine could maintain tariffs on EU imports for another 15 months.

Public support for NATO is rising in Ukraine, and several YES panelists addressed NATO membership. Ms. Tymoshenko said Ukraine should have made NATO membership a part of the Budapest memorandum. Mr. Yatseniuk noted that, with Russia’s invasion, NATO offered the only vehicle for defending Ukraine, though he understood that the Alliance was not ready for Ukraine to apply—an understanding that others privately acknowledged.

Where’s the Reform?

Businessmen and civil society leaders at YES panels and in private conversations expressed great frustration with the lack of progress on economic reform and anti-corruption efforts. The government on its own could abolish a number of unneeded regulatory bodies that only created red tape and corruption opportunities, but it had not, just as there had been no major corruption prosecutions.

Mr. Poroshenko acknowledged the point, saying he would try to accelerate reform efforts. Mr. Yatseniuk agreed that the government had not yet advanced major anti-corruption reform but stoutly defended the government’s record.

Mr. Yatseniuk painted an (overly?) optimistic picture of Ukraine’s energy situation as winter loomed. He said Ukraine had 17 billion cubic meters in storage (the country recently has burnt about 50 billion cubic meters per year) and had begun importing coal from as far away as South Africa to make up for lost coal production in Donetsk.

The Rada Elections and What Comes After

Rada elections are scheduled for October 26. Mr. Poroshenko told his audience that Ukraine could prevail only if united but would stay united even with the Rada elections. Perhaps, but there is some reason for concern that the elections could produce a divided or muddled parliament. Mr. Poroshenko and Mr. Yatseniuk failed to agree on running together in a single party, though the prime minister said he was ready to sign a coalition agreement even before the elections.

There are a number of wild cards. According to opinion polls, Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party will have little trouble clearing the five-percent threshold for the party list vote. It is not clear how Donetsk and Luhansk will be handled in the elections; one former official expressed concern that Mr. Putin could use elections there to form “his” bloc in the Rada. Another official pointed out that leaders of the volunteer battalions could trade on their hero images and reputations for straight talk to do well in individual constituency votes.

Ukraine needs a strong, stable Rada coalition following the October elections that will work with a president and prime minister who are on the same page to implement key reforms and anti-corruption measures, as well as to manage the conflict in eastern Ukraine and a settlement process. If Mr. Poroshenko and the prime minister are not in sync, or if a divided Rada falls back into the petty political in-fighting and non-transparent dealings that characterized so many Radas before it, Kyiv will have a difficult time addressing the many challenges confronting it. And it will have a much harder time securing stronger support from the United States and Europe if the West feels that it has seen the movie before … and already knows the unhappy ending.

Note: The YES conference is sponsored by the Victor Pinchuk Fund, which is a Brookings donor.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/03/28-japan-new-thinking-national-security-greitens?rssid=trip+reports{BA054985-9FC0-47D0-B5F4-C6C18DEABCCC}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/66360236/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Japan-New-Thinking-on-National-SecurityJapan: New Thinking on National Security

I just returned from a trip to Japan, where the major topics of discussion were Japanese national security strategy and the strategic choices facing Tokyo in the 21st century.

There has, of course, been a lot of development in these topics of late, with the Japanese government issuing a National Security Strategy for the first time in December 2013. That same day, the government issued the National Defense Program Guidelines for 2014 and after. The Abe administration has also announced the establishment of a National Security Council (mirroring that of the U.S., and now China) to coordinate these efforts across government.

In sum, these efforts seek to make Japan a “proactive contributor to peace” – active and cooperative in increasing international security in Asia and globally. The documents also point to an increase in Japan’s defense spending, both to achieve this vision and to meet a perceived increase in the demand for deterrence in the East China Sea and vis-à-vis North Korea.

Significant thinking remains to be done on issues ranging from how the new NSC is likely to interface with various parts of the Japanese bureaucracy to how the U.S.-Japan alliance should approach deterrence and crisis management in “grey zone” incidents. These shifts in Japanese policy, however, are likely to be welcomed by the United States, which has long wanted Japan to be able to play a more active role. Many of them will likely be welcomed in Southeast Asia as well, where perceptions of Japan are generally positive, and where Tokyo has placed significant diplomatic, economic, and assistance emphasis in the past few years – cooperation with the Philippines and Myanmar and ASEAN being just a few notable examples.

One of the most significant sources of opposition to changing Japan’s role in Asian security has been regional friction over Japan’s approach to history. Although “history questions” are not discussed in the new defense and security policy documents, it is clear that they are an immediate and fundamental strategic challenge for Japan – in part because a series of statements and gestures by politicians associated with the Abe administration have inflamed animosity in Asia, particularly in China and South Korea, with concrete costs to Japan’s security. Most notably, the re-emergence of the issue contributed to the cancellation of a valuable intelligence-sharing agreement between Tokyo and Seoul, and has stalled relations between those two countries since Prime Minister Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office.

As others have noted, Japan is going to find it difficult to emerge as a 21st century power if it is still re-litigating events of the 20th century. Official statements that Japan sees as adding historical nuance or precision to the debate are perceived in China and South Korea as missing the emotional heart of the matter: the human suffering experienced in those countries during the period of Japanese expansionism. Chinese researchers and media explicitly use the metaphor of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1970 as a contrast with Abe’s current behavior. (The analogy is likely popular in China for two additional and important reasons: first because Brandt’s move was unpopular among German conservatives at the time, and second because it went hand-in-hand with West Germany’s recognition of the post-war German-Polish border – a useful analogy if China wishes to suggest that concessions on disputed territory would provide a true signal of Japan’s sincerity.)

It is good to see, therefore, that some of Japan’s new thinking also encompasses these issues, and that there are small signs of progress. At the official level, President Park and Prime Minister Abe met for thefirst time this week in a trilateral forum with President Obama. Abe said last week that his government will not overturn the 1993 “Kono Statement” on comfort women, and in South Korea recent polling data suggest that domestic anger over history is less of a constraint than the government might think, providing some opening for movement. At the unofficial level, proposals like that of Professor Kiichi Fujiwara, which focuses on how to address the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Second World War in Asia, seek to move the history issue out of its current zero-sum framework and shift its focus from official disputes toward the collective commemoration of shared human suffering.

As Caitlin Talmadge and I noted in an analysis of the U.S.-Japan alliance last summer, the United States cannot and should not force its allies to resolve their grievances, including historical ones. It can, however, play a constructive role by fostering opportunities for its allies to improve relations, as it did in a joint security statement issued by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea in June 2013, or by arranging this week’s trilateral meeting. The same might be true for history, where Asia’s 20th century history is America’s too, and where the U.S. role and interest in shaping a positive environment are clear. Doing so might also add diplomatic heft to a “rebalance” policy whose underpinnings have been called into question by sequestration’s impact on the American defense budget and the uncertain future of the rebalance’s economic centerpiece, the Trans-Pacific Partnership – questions that are being actively raised by America’s allies and partners across Asia.

It is difficult not to conclude after this trip that the strategic challenges currently facing Japan and the U.S.-Japan alliance are serious, and that a lot of work remains to be done to meet these challenges. The good news from the trip, however, is that the strategic thinking underway seems equally serious.

Authors

I just returned from a trip to Japan, where the major topics of discussion were Japanese national security strategy and the strategic choices facing Tokyo in the 21st century.

There has, of course, been a lot of development in these topics of late, with the Japanese government issuing a National Security Strategy for the first time in December 2013. That same day, the government issued the National Defense Program Guidelines for 2014 and after. The Abe administration has also announced the establishment of a National Security Council (mirroring that of the U.S., and now China) to coordinate these efforts across government.

In sum, these efforts seek to make Japan a “proactive contributor to peace” – active and cooperative in increasing international security in Asia and globally. The documents also point to an increase in Japan’s defense spending, both to achieve this vision and to meet a perceived increase in the demand for deterrence in the East China Sea and vis-à-vis North Korea.

Significant thinking remains to be done on issues ranging from how the new NSC is likely to interface with various parts of the Japanese bureaucracy to how the U.S.-Japan alliance should approach deterrence and crisis management in “grey zone” incidents. These shifts in Japanese policy, however, are likely to be welcomed by the United States, which has long wanted Japan to be able to play a more active role. Many of them will likely be welcomed in Southeast Asia as well, where perceptions of Japan are generally positive, and where Tokyo has placed significant diplomatic, economic, and assistance emphasis in the past few years – cooperation with the Philippines and Myanmar and ASEAN being just a few notable examples.

One of the most significant sources of opposition to changing Japan’s role in Asian security has been regional friction over Japan’s approach to history. Although “history questions” are not discussed in the new defense and security policy documents, it is clear that they are an immediate and fundamental strategic challenge for Japan – in part because a series of statements and gestures by politicians associated with the Abe administration have inflamed animosity in Asia, particularly in China and South Korea, with concrete costs to Japan’s security. Most notably, the re-emergence of the issue contributed to the cancellation of a valuable intelligence-sharing agreement between Tokyo and Seoul, and has stalled relations between those two countries since Prime Minister Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office.

As others have noted, Japan is going to find it difficult to emerge as a 21st century power if it is still re-litigating events of the 20th century. Official statements that Japan sees as adding historical nuance or precision to the debate are perceived in China and South Korea as missing the emotional heart of the matter: the human suffering experienced in those countries during the period of Japanese expansionism. Chinese researchers and media explicitly use the metaphor of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1970 as a contrast with Abe’s current behavior. (The analogy is likely popular in China for two additional and important reasons: first because Brandt’s move was unpopular among German conservatives at the time, and second because it went hand-in-hand with West Germany’s recognition of the post-war German-Polish border – a useful analogy if China wishes to suggest that concessions on disputed territory would provide a true signal of Japan’s sincerity.)

It is good to see, therefore, that some of Japan’s new thinking also encompasses these issues, and that there are small signs of progress. At the official level, President Park and Prime Minister Abe met for thefirst time this week in a trilateral forum with President Obama. Abe said last week that his government will not overturn the 1993 “Kono Statement” on comfort women, and in South Korea recent polling data suggest that domestic anger over history is less of a constraint than the government might think, providing some opening for movement. At the unofficial level, proposals like that of Professor Kiichi Fujiwara, which focuses on how to address the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Second World War in Asia, seek to move the history issue out of its current zero-sum framework and shift its focus from official disputes toward the collective commemoration of shared human suffering.

As Caitlin Talmadge and I noted in an analysis of the U.S.-Japan alliance last summer, the United States cannot and should not force its allies to resolve their grievances, including historical ones. It can, however, play a constructive role by fostering opportunities for its allies to improve relations, as it did in a joint security statement issued by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea in June 2013, or by arranging this week’s trilateral meeting. The same might be true for history, where Asia’s 20th century history is America’s too, and where the U.S. role and interest in shaping a positive environment are clear. Doing so might also add diplomatic heft to a “rebalance” policy whose underpinnings have been called into question by sequestration’s impact on the American defense budget and the uncertain future of the rebalance’s economic centerpiece, the Trans-Pacific Partnership – questions that are being actively raised by America’s allies and partners across Asia.

It is difficult not to conclude after this trip that the strategic challenges currently facing Japan and the U.S.-Japan alliance are serious, and that a lot of work remains to be done to meet these challenges. The good news from the trip, however, is that the strategic thinking underway seems equally serious.

A subtext of the conference was the difference, when it comes to Korea, between unification and integration. Unification refers to the formal, legal end to the post-World War II division of the Korean Peninsula, combining the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south and the Democratic People’s Republic (DPRK) in the north. Integration refers to the process by which the very different economic, political, social, and cultural systems on the two sides of the Demilitarized Zone are knit back together. (An analogy: the United States was reunified after the Civil War, but the southern states that had seceded were not reintegrated into the nation for at least another century.)

Korean unification has often seemed like a bridge too far. The ROK and DPRK have been adversaries for decades, each with its own formula for unification based on conflicting values. Each sought to triumph over the other. As difficult as unification has been, however, integration will likely be a lot harder. South Korea is a vibrant democracy with a thriving capitalist economy and a lively, cosmopolitan culture. North Korea is a fairly brutal totalitarian system with a state-dominated economy and state-imposed caste system. The South has excelled at being a part of the international system; the North has cut itself off. Each country is very Korean, but in very different ways. When the time comes, integration will require the re-wiring of the two systems. The degree of change will likely be far-reaching in the North, and be especially difficult if it comes after some sort of regime collapse.

There have been competing ideas about whether unification or integration will come first. The Western European example, which apparently animated South Korea’s policy for a couple of decades, was that integration would come first and gradually create an environment in which unification could occur. The “sunshine policy” of the late Kim Dae Jung, who served as president of the ROK from 1998 to 2003 was the prime expression of this integration-first approach. The hope in the South was (and still is) that unification would be the end result of a gradual, negotiated and peaceful process in which the DPRK would accommodate to and be absorbed by the ROK.

In the alternative scenario, unification comes first but occurs after some convulsive, abrupt, and probably violent chain of events in the North, as the change-resistant system collapses of its own weight. Integration follows unification. The DPRK becomes, in effect, the defeated ward of the ROK, which must manage and underwrite the protracted rehabilitation and assimilation of a failed system and a people who have been cut off from the world for decades.

I don’t know which sequence the Peninsula will follow. Integration-then-unification would probably be easier for both parts of the Peninsula, but because the leaders of the North refuse to admit that their policies have failed, unification-then-integration seems more likely.

A subtext of the conference was the difference, when it comes to Korea, between unification and integration. Unification refers to the formal, legal end to the post-World War II division of the Korean Peninsula, combining the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south and the Democratic People’s Republic (DPRK) in the north. Integration refers to the process by which the very different economic, political, social, and cultural systems on the two sides of the Demilitarized Zone are knit back together. (An analogy: the United States was reunified after the Civil War, but the southern states that had seceded were not reintegrated into the nation for at least another century.)

Korean unification has often seemed like a bridge too far. The ROK and DPRK have been adversaries for decades, each with its own formula for unification based on conflicting values. Each sought to triumph over the other. As difficult as unification has been, however, integration will likely be a lot harder. South Korea is a vibrant democracy with a thriving capitalist economy and a lively, cosmopolitan culture. North Korea is a fairly brutal totalitarian system with a state-dominated economy and state-imposed caste system. The South has excelled at being a part of the international system; the North has cut itself off. Each country is very Korean, but in very different ways. When the time comes, integration will require the re-wiring of the two systems. The degree of change will likely be far-reaching in the North, and be especially difficult if it comes after some sort of regime collapse.

There have been competing ideas about whether unification or integration will come first. The Western European example, which apparently animated South Korea’s policy for a couple of decades, was that integration would come first and gradually create an environment in which unification could occur. The “sunshine policy” of the late Kim Dae Jung, who served as president of the ROK from 1998 to 2003 was the prime expression of this integration-first approach. The hope in the South was (and still is) that unification would be the end result of a gradual, negotiated and peaceful process in which the DPRK would accommodate to and be absorbed by the ROK.

In the alternative scenario, unification comes first but occurs after some convulsive, abrupt, and probably violent chain of events in the North, as the change-resistant system collapses of its own weight. Integration follows unification. The DPRK becomes, in effect, the defeated ward of the ROK, which must manage and underwrite the protracted rehabilitation and assimilation of a failed system and a people who have been cut off from the world for decades.

I don’t know which sequence the Peninsula will follow. Integration-then-unification would probably be easier for both parts of the Peninsula, but because the leaders of the North refuse to admit that their policies have failed, unification-then-integration seems more likely.

I’m finishing up a brief trip to South Korea, where the most frequent topic of discussion is unification with the North. That, of course, has been the goal of the Republic of Korea for decades, and President Park Geun-hye stated in her inaugural address eleven months ago that laying the foundation for unification of the Korean peninsula was one of the four major objectives of her administration. But in her New Year’s Day press conference this year, she proclaimed that unification would be a “jackpot” for the Korean people. Some newspapers devoted extensive coverage to the different aspects of unification and the consequences for South Korea. Suddenly, the dream of a Korean Peninsula that is whole, prosperous, and free was less of an illusion.

The likely reason for this sudden exuberance was North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s purge and execution of his uncle Jang Song Taek last year. That there was a rift in the Kim “royal family” led some in the South to think that the North Korean regime was more brittle than it had seemed. And, since that regime and its hostile policies had been the main reason for the continuing division of the Peninsula, perhaps unification was more imminent than they had ever thought.

Of course, the people of South Korea understand fully the complexities surrounding unification and the sacrifices that the South will have to make to bring a better life to their northern cousins. There are, moreover, significant disagreements over how unification will occur (rapidly or slowly, peacefully or violently); what the final outcome will look like; and the costs that South Korea will have to bear. There will be, after all, a difference between the formal act of unification, hard as that may be, and the much tougher job of integrating two very different economic, political, and social systems into one national community. There are also concerns about the implications for regional peace and stability. In particular, what will be the consequences for the alliance with the United States, since North Korea, the principal object of the alliance will no longer exist? What will happen to relations with China, which fears that a united peninsula could become a platform for containing it?

Young South Koreans, who came of age in a prosperous and democratic society probably have more reluctance about unification than their elders, who witnessed the trauma of the Korean War and the poverty that followed. Still, one gets the sense that the logjam that has persisted for so long is beginning to break, and that some South Koreans dare to dream.

Authors

I’m finishing up a brief trip to South Korea, where the most frequent topic of discussion is unification with the North. That, of course, has been the goal of the Republic of Korea for decades, and President Park Geun-hye stated in her inaugural address eleven months ago that laying the foundation for unification of the Korean peninsula was one of the four major objectives of her administration. But in her New Year’s Day press conference this year, she proclaimed that unification would be a “jackpot” for the Korean people. Some newspapers devoted extensive coverage to the different aspects of unification and the consequences for South Korea. Suddenly, the dream of a Korean Peninsula that is whole, prosperous, and free was less of an illusion.

The likely reason for this sudden exuberance was North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s purge and execution of his uncle Jang Song Taek last year. That there was a rift in the Kim “royal family” led some in the South to think that the North Korean regime was more brittle than it had seemed. And, since that regime and its hostile policies had been the main reason for the continuing division of the Peninsula, perhaps unification was more imminent than they had ever thought.

Of course, the people of South Korea understand fully the complexities surrounding unification and the sacrifices that the South will have to make to bring a better life to their northern cousins. There are, moreover, significant disagreements over how unification will occur (rapidly or slowly, peacefully or violently); what the final outcome will look like; and the costs that South Korea will have to bear. There will be, after all, a difference between the formal act of unification, hard as that may be, and the much tougher job of integrating two very different economic, political, and social systems into one national community. There are also concerns about the implications for regional peace and stability. In particular, what will be the consequences for the alliance with the United States, since North Korea, the principal object of the alliance will no longer exist? What will happen to relations with China, which fears that a united peninsula could become a platform for containing it?

Young South Koreans, who came of age in a prosperous and democratic society probably have more reluctance about unification than their elders, who witnessed the trauma of the Korean War and the poverty that followed. Still, one gets the sense that the logjam that has persisted for so long is beginning to break, and that some South Koreans dare to dream.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2013/10/11-palestine-political-dynamics-egypt-coup-elgindy?rssid=trip+reports{6B78F1EE-A478-4B1A-97BC-0F5F1C8F13B6}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/66360241/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Palestinian-Political-Dynamics-in-the-Aftermath-of-the-Egyptian-CoupPalestinian Political Dynamics in the Aftermath of the Egyptian Coup

I recently returned from a month-long visit to Ramallah and Jerusalem, where I met with Palestinian officials, civil society leaders, academics and journalists as well as foreign diplomats and other observers. Although the trip was planned several months earlier, the timing proved to be far more interesting than anticipated given the dramatic developments in the region over the summer. I arrived in Ramallah in late July, only weeks after the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013, and days after the formal resumption of peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. While the picture is still far from settled, several important observations can be made about the state of Palestinian politics amid Egypt’s ongoing turmoil.

Negotiations: Why Now? … Why Not?

The resumption of formal Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in July, which is viewed as something of breakthrough in Washington and other western capitals, generates very little discussion among ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank. A combination of widespread public skepticism and “negotiations fatigue” as well as concern over more pressing social and economic problems like unemployment and rising prices, has left Palestinians with little interest and even less confidence in the latest peace process. Indeed, many Palestinians I spoke with seemed more consumed by events in Egypt than with the newly launched peace talks.

Virtually none of the Palestinians I met with, including those close to Abbas’ leadership, had any confidence at all in the newly launched peace negotiations. In fact, the decision to go back to negotiations, despite the absence of a settlement freeze (indeed in the midst of a major spike in settlement activity), and other Palestinian demands, was highly unpopular even within Abbas’ own Fatah faction. Many pointed out, for example, that neither the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) nor Fatah’s Central Committee were in favor of returning to negotiations and that the decision was Abbas’ alone.

Palestinian skepticism is rooted in a lack of confidence in American mediation and even more so in a profound distrust of Israeli intentions. All of my Palestinian interlocutors, officials and non-officials alike, expressed zero confidence in Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ability, or even inclination, to achieve a genuine end to the conflict or a credible two-state solution. In addition to presiding over one of the most pro-settlement governments in Israel's history, Netanyahu has made it clear that he is far more concerned with Iran’s nuclear program than he is with the Palestinian question. Netanyahu’s engagement in the process is thus seen as a way to neutralize international pressure (particularly on settlements), improve Israel’s image, and perhaps gain some leverage with U.S. officials on Iran.

Abbas’ decision to go back to negotiations was equally viewed in tactical terms—mainly as a way to win some short-term concessions, such as political prisoners and continued financial assistance to the PA, and to avoid being blamed for the failure of the process. Several observers also noted the importance of the “Kerry factor”—referring to the American secretary of state’s well-known passion for the issue as well as his (perhaps somewhat exaggerated) assessment of his own capabilities. American pressure can be difficult to resist, and Abbas, who has always placed a particularly high premium on American approval, was simply not in a position to say no.

The relatively high political and economic costs associated with alternative courses of action such as internationalization or internal reconciliation also helps explain Abbas’ preference for negotiations. While attempts at building on last year’s successful UN bid, for example by pursuing membership in the International Criminal court or other international bodies, or at entering into a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas are both hugely popular with Palestinians, they risk incurring the wrath of the United States and Israel, as well as another international boycott of an already cash-strapped PA.

In the end, the dramatic events in Egypt may have been the most decisive factor in compelling Abbas to go back to the negotiations. With Abbas’ Hamas rivals in Gaza seemingly sidelined, the costs of failing—and not just participating—in negotiations were suddenly and dramatically reduced. One veteran observer of the PLO who had met with Abbas in late July described his reasoning for agreeing to resume negotiations to me as, “why not?”

Hamas & Prospects for Reconciliation

Apart from the Egyptian people themselves, no other group has felt the impact of the turmoil in Egypt more acutely than the Palestinians. This is as true of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank as it is of the Hamas government in Gaza. Whereas the rapid rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood following the Egyptian uprising of 2011 was a huge boon for Hamas and a major setback for Abbas’ leadership, the overthrow of Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on the Brotherhood have suddenly and decisively shifted the internal balance of power back in Abbas’ favor.

As a result, Palestinian internal reconciliation has become even less likely. In the wake of Morsi’s overthrow and the crackdown against the Brotherhood in Egypt, efforts at bridging the seven-year divide between Fatah and Hamas have gone into deep freeze.

Still in shock over Morsi’s ouster and the loss of their Brotherhood allies, Hamas has been gripped by insecurity and a growing sense of siege, neither of which are conducive to compromise. In addition to killing hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and jailing most of its leadership, Egyptian authorities have also targeted Hamas, itself an offshoot of the Brotherhood. Egyptian security forces have moved aggressively against the smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt that have been the lifeblood of both Gaza’s economy and Hamas rule, while accusing Hamas of fomenting instability across the border in Sinai. Despite occasional rhetorical outbursts directed at Egypt’s military, Hamas is keen to tamp down tensions with Egypt, with whom it must have good relations regardless of who is in power.

Hamas is also feeling the pressure from inside Gaza. A new protest movement known as Tamarod (“Rebellion”), modeled on the similarly named Egyptian group whose massive protests on June 30, 2013, precipitated Morsi’s overthrow, has called for a “day of rebellion” on November 11, 2013. This has further piqued Hamas’ insecurity and sense of siege. As a result, the Hamas government has become even more repressive, rounding up youth activists, university professors, journalists, and any others with the potential to cause trouble.

Meanwhile, Hamas is in a state of internal disarray as various factions within the group vie for power and struggle to cope with the isolation brought by Morsi’s ouster. Whereas before July 3, 2013 Cairo was seen as Hamas’ ticket to regional and international normalization, since the coup Hamas has been more isolated than ever. Events in Egypt have dealt a serious blow to Khaled Meshaal, the newly reelected leader of Hamas’ politburo and chief architect of the plan to reorient the group away from Iran and Syria and toward Egypt (along with Turkey and Qatar).

Hamas’ misfortune has been Fatah’s gain. Ironically, at the same time that Abbas’ negotiating position vis-à-vis Hamas was improved, his incentive for doing so has diminished. With local and regional trends now working for rather than against them, Abbas and his Fatah faction finally feel that they can afford to ignore Hamas—at least for now. Immediately following Morsi’s ouster, Abbas and other senior PLO figures heaped praise on Egypt’s military while doing little to conceal their satisfaction at the Brotherhood’s defeat and Hamas’ predicament.

Members of Abbas’s ruling clique see Hamas’ future as bound up with that of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. As one senior PLO official explained to me, Morsi’s ouster from power was not just a defeat for Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but the “demise of political Islam” as whole. Meanwhile, many of those close to Abbas described him as the most content and relaxed as they had seen him in many years. The sense of triumphalism among PLO/PA officials is palpable—occasionally bordering on the delusional. Some Fatah officials, I was told, are hoping that Egypt’s military will go on to “clean up” Gaza after finishing off the Brotherhood in Egypt.

Leadership Crisis

Despite Fatah’s current sense of triumphalism over Hamas’ worsening position, Abbas’ leadership in the West Bank continues to face numerous crises. Indeed, the current leadership crisis extends to persons, institutions, and parties, as well as a lack of strategy or vision. Although not immediately evident, there is widespread dissatisfaction with Abbas’ leadership, including within Fatah, as well as equal frustration with the lack of an obvious alternative. Meanwhile, talk of rebuilding or reforming institutions is increasingly less focused on the PA, which is often derided as something more akin to a municipal authority than a state-in-the-making, and more on the PLO as a national/political body. Despite Abbas’ decision to go back to negotiations, the current Ramallah-based leadership remains strategically adrift.

Moreover, many Palestinians cited Abbas’ unilateral decision to go back to negotiations while ignoring any opposition, including within his own Fatah faction, as symptomatic of his growing autocratic style, lack of accountability, and detachment from ordinary Palestinians. More than one of my interlocutors observed that Abbas was even more autocratic than Arafat, who for all of his authoritarian tendencies and undemocratic way at least had an opposition to answer to. Abbas meanwhile has neither a parliament to oversee his government nor any genuine political opposition that can openly challenge his decision making; the Palestinian Legislative Council has not met in five years while Hamas’ activities in the West Bank continue to be suppressed by the PA.

Fatah has sought to capitalize on its newfound ascendency by calling for new elections in order settle the dispute with Hamas once and for all, something Hamas has flatly rejected. Abbas himself, in his most recent address to the UNGA, has called for achieving, “reconciliation by returning to the ballot box”—a rather myopic proposal given his own experiences as well as those of neighboring Egypt. Experience shows that elections, when held in the absence of a political consensus on the basic rules of the game, seldom resolve political disputes and frequently exacerbate them.

Despite these political crises and worsening economic conditions in the West Bank, prospects for major street mobilization—whether it is directed at the Israeli occupation (“third Intifada”) or at the PA itself (“Palestinian spring”) —remain slim. This may be less a reflection of Palestinian contentment than with the general lack of confidence in existing institutions. The PLO, officially the “sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, today exists only on paper, while its successor, the PA, is itself in decline. Meanwhile both Hamas and Fatah seem incapable of transcending their own narrow, parochial agendas. This dysfunctional reality points to a much deeper crisis of legitimacy that must be addressed before any credible diplomatic or “institution-building” processes can be pursued.

It is clear that events in Egypt will continue to be a significant factor in the political calculus of both Palestinian leaderships, shaping decision making on a range of issues, including the negotiations with Israel, internal reconciliation and other choices. With Hamas on the defensive and more isolated than ever, Abbas’ Fatah leadership has found itself once again in the driver’s seat of Palestinian politics. Given the volatility of events in the region however, and the susceptibility of a divided Palestinian polity to external forces, the current situation may not hold for long. If there is one lesson to be gleaned from both the Palestinian and Egyptian cases, it is that without a basic consensus on the rules of the game it is impossible to move forward on a coherent national program.

Authors

I recently returned from a month-long visit to Ramallah and Jerusalem, where I met with Palestinian officials, civil society leaders, academics and journalists as well as foreign diplomats and other observers. Although the trip was planned several months earlier, the timing proved to be far more interesting than anticipated given the dramatic developments in the region over the summer. I arrived in Ramallah in late July, only weeks after the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013, and days after the formal resumption of peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. While the picture is still far from settled, several important observations can be made about the state of Palestinian politics amid Egypt’s ongoing turmoil.

Negotiations: Why Now? … Why Not?

The resumption of formal Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in July, which is viewed as something of breakthrough in Washington and other western capitals, generates very little discussion among ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank. A combination of widespread public skepticism and “negotiations fatigue” as well as concern over more pressing social and economic problems like unemployment and rising prices, has left Palestinians with little interest and even less confidence in the latest peace process. Indeed, many Palestinians I spoke with seemed more consumed by events in Egypt than with the newly launched peace talks.

Virtually none of the Palestinians I met with, including those close to Abbas’ leadership, had any confidence at all in the newly launched peace negotiations. In fact, the decision to go back to negotiations, despite the absence of a settlement freeze (indeed in the midst of a major spike in settlement activity), and other Palestinian demands, was highly unpopular even within Abbas’ own Fatah faction. Many pointed out, for example, that neither the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) nor Fatah’s Central Committee were in favor of returning to negotiations and that the decision was Abbas’ alone.

Palestinian skepticism is rooted in a lack of confidence in American mediation and even more so in a profound distrust of Israeli intentions. All of my Palestinian interlocutors, officials and non-officials alike, expressed zero confidence in Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ability, or even inclination, to achieve a genuine end to the conflict or a credible two-state solution. In addition to presiding over one of the most pro-settlement governments in Israel's history, Netanyahu has made it clear that he is far more concerned with Iran’s nuclear program than he is with the Palestinian question. Netanyahu’s engagement in the process is thus seen as a way to neutralize international pressure (particularly on settlements), improve Israel’s image, and perhaps gain some leverage with U.S. officials on Iran.

Abbas’ decision to go back to negotiations was equally viewed in tactical terms—mainly as a way to win some short-term concessions, such as political prisoners and continued financial assistance to the PA, and to avoid being blamed for the failure of the process. Several observers also noted the importance of the “Kerry factor”—referring to the American secretary of state’s well-known passion for the issue as well as his (perhaps somewhat exaggerated) assessment of his own capabilities. American pressure can be difficult to resist, and Abbas, who has always placed a particularly high premium on American approval, was simply not in a position to say no.

The relatively high political and economic costs associated with alternative courses of action such as internationalization or internal reconciliation also helps explain Abbas’ preference for negotiations. While attempts at building on last year’s successful UN bid, for example by pursuing membership in the International Criminal court or other international bodies, or at entering into a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas are both hugely popular with Palestinians, they risk incurring the wrath of the United States and Israel, as well as another international boycott of an already cash-strapped PA.

In the end, the dramatic events in Egypt may have been the most decisive factor in compelling Abbas to go back to the negotiations. With Abbas’ Hamas rivals in Gaza seemingly sidelined, the costs of failing—and not just participating—in negotiations were suddenly and dramatically reduced. One veteran observer of the PLO who had met with Abbas in late July described his reasoning for agreeing to resume negotiations to me as, “why not?”

Hamas & Prospects for Reconciliation

Apart from the Egyptian people themselves, no other group has felt the impact of the turmoil in Egypt more acutely than the Palestinians. This is as true of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank as it is of the Hamas government in Gaza. Whereas the rapid rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood following the Egyptian uprising of 2011 was a huge boon for Hamas and a major setback for Abbas’ leadership, the overthrow of Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on the Brotherhood have suddenly and decisively shifted the internal balance of power back in Abbas’ favor.

As a result, Palestinian internal reconciliation has become even less likely. In the wake of Morsi’s overthrow and the crackdown against the Brotherhood in Egypt, efforts at bridging the seven-year divide between Fatah and Hamas have gone into deep freeze.

Still in shock over Morsi’s ouster and the loss of their Brotherhood allies, Hamas has been gripped by insecurity and a growing sense of siege, neither of which are conducive to compromise. In addition to killing hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and jailing most of its leadership, Egyptian authorities have also targeted Hamas, itself an offshoot of the Brotherhood. Egyptian security forces have moved aggressively against the smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt that have been the lifeblood of both Gaza’s economy and Hamas rule, while accusing Hamas of fomenting instability across the border in Sinai. Despite occasional rhetorical outbursts directed at Egypt’s military, Hamas is keen to tamp down tensions with Egypt, with whom it must have good relations regardless of who is in power.

Hamas is also feeling the pressure from inside Gaza. A new protest movement known as Tamarod (“Rebellion”), modeled on the similarly named Egyptian group whose massive protests on June 30, 2013, precipitated Morsi’s overthrow, has called for a “day of rebellion” on November 11, 2013. This has further piqued Hamas’ insecurity and sense of siege. As a result, the Hamas government has become even more repressive, rounding up youth activists, university professors, journalists, and any others with the potential to cause trouble.

Meanwhile, Hamas is in a state of internal disarray as various factions within the group vie for power and struggle to cope with the isolation brought by Morsi’s ouster. Whereas before July 3, 2013 Cairo was seen as Hamas’ ticket to regional and international normalization, since the coup Hamas has been more isolated than ever. Events in Egypt have dealt a serious blow to Khaled Meshaal, the newly reelected leader of Hamas’ politburo and chief architect of the plan to reorient the group away from Iran and Syria and toward Egypt (along with Turkey and Qatar).

Hamas’ misfortune has been Fatah’s gain. Ironically, at the same time that Abbas’ negotiating position vis-à-vis Hamas was improved, his incentive for doing so has diminished. With local and regional trends now working for rather than against them, Abbas and his Fatah faction finally feel that they can afford to ignore Hamas—at least for now. Immediately following Morsi’s ouster, Abbas and other senior PLO figures heaped praise on Egypt’s military while doing little to conceal their satisfaction at the Brotherhood’s defeat and Hamas’ predicament.

Members of Abbas’s ruling clique see Hamas’ future as bound up with that of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. As one senior PLO official explained to me, Morsi’s ouster from power was not just a defeat for Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but the “demise of political Islam” as whole. Meanwhile, many of those close to Abbas described him as the most content and relaxed as they had seen him in many years. The sense of triumphalism among PLO/PA officials is palpable—occasionally bordering on the delusional. Some Fatah officials, I was told, are hoping that Egypt’s military will go on to “clean up” Gaza after finishing off the Brotherhood in Egypt.

Leadership Crisis

Despite Fatah’s current sense of triumphalism over Hamas’ worsening position, Abbas’ leadership in the West Bank continues to face numerous crises. Indeed, the current leadership crisis extends to persons, institutions, and parties, as well as a lack of strategy or vision. Although not immediately evident, there is widespread dissatisfaction with Abbas’ leadership, including within Fatah, as well as equal frustration with the lack of an obvious alternative. Meanwhile, talk of rebuilding or reforming institutions is increasingly less focused on the PA, which is often derided as something more akin to a municipal authority than a state-in-the-making, and more on the PLO as a national/political body. Despite Abbas’ decision to go back to negotiations, the current Ramallah-based leadership remains strategically adrift.

Moreover, many Palestinians cited Abbas’ unilateral decision to go back to negotiations while ignoring any opposition, including within his own Fatah faction, as symptomatic of his growing autocratic style, lack of accountability, and detachment from ordinary Palestinians. More than one of my interlocutors observed that Abbas was even more autocratic than Arafat, who for all of his authoritarian tendencies and undemocratic way at least had an opposition to answer to. Abbas meanwhile has neither a parliament to oversee his government nor any genuine political opposition that can openly challenge his decision making; the Palestinian Legislative Council has not met in five years while Hamas’ activities in the West Bank continue to be suppressed by the PA.

Fatah has sought to capitalize on its newfound ascendency by calling for new elections in order settle the dispute with Hamas once and for all, something Hamas has flatly rejected. Abbas himself, in his most recent address to the UNGA, has called for achieving, “reconciliation by returning to the ballot box”—a rather myopic proposal given his own experiences as well as those of neighboring Egypt. Experience shows that elections, when held in the absence of a political consensus on the basic rules of the game, seldom resolve political disputes and frequently exacerbate them.

Despite these political crises and worsening economic conditions in the West Bank, prospects for major street mobilization—whether it is directed at the Israeli occupation (“third Intifada”) or at the PA itself (“Palestinian spring”) —remain slim. This may be less a reflection of Palestinian contentment than with the general lack of confidence in existing institutions. The PLO, officially the “sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, today exists only on paper, while its successor, the PA, is itself in decline. Meanwhile both Hamas and Fatah seem incapable of transcending their own narrow, parochial agendas. This dysfunctional reality points to a much deeper crisis of legitimacy that must be addressed before any credible diplomatic or “institution-building” processes can be pursued.

It is clear that events in Egypt will continue to be a significant factor in the political calculus of both Palestinian leaderships, shaping decision making on a range of issues, including the negotiations with Israel, internal reconciliation and other choices. With Hamas on the defensive and more isolated than ever, Abbas’ Fatah leadership has found itself once again in the driver’s seat of Palestinian politics. Given the volatility of events in the region however, and the susceptibility of a divided Palestinian polity to external forces, the current situation may not hold for long. If there is one lesson to be gleaned from both the Palestinian and Egyptian cases, it is that without a basic consensus on the rules of the game it is impossible to move forward on a coherent national program.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2013/10/03-cuba-trip-piccone?rssid=trip+reports{E0ECD906-5F95-4587-883E-E295EE4B81BC}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/66360242/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Cuba-Trip-Report-A-Stroll-Toward-Change-and-a-View-from-the-StreetsCuba Trip Report: A Stroll Toward Change and a View from the Streets

On September 27, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the local watchdogs of Cuba’s Communist Party, celebrated their 53rd anniversary with a series of street parties around the country. Neighbors danced around small bonfires and enjoyed potluck dinners into the late hours of the night, leaving Havana’s streets relatively deserted as I strolled downtown the following morning. President Raúl Castro and other party leaders marked the occasion by presiding over the CDR’s 8th Congress, where discussions about various problems, like the proliferation of illegal and “immoral” activities at the local level, were underway.

A sign proclaiming “Long live the CDR” hangs on the wall outside a local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution office the morning after street parties celebrating their 53rd anniversary. Photo credit: Ted Piccone

As I wandered the broken cobble-stoned corridors of Old Havana, I happened upon the Communist Party’s Museum of the CDR, its walls covered with homages to the heroes of the 1959 Revolution, framed greetings from the people of Vietnam and China and various replicas of the Cuban flag and other symbols of nationalist pride. As my guide at the CDR museum completed the tour, she quietly closed the door to the exhibit room, shyly asked for a small tip and then carefully hid the bill in a crumpled piece of paper.

Along the way, I had been approached by other friendly Cubans looking for a favor; one even suggested a trip to the grocery story to buy food for his child. My taxi driver was an aspiring lawyer who drove visitors around in an ailing Soviet-era Lada to earn hard currency on the side. A policeman chatted with fishermen along the famed Malecón as he watched two men in a small boat struggle for the day’s catch in front of a sign that said: no fishing boats allowed.

The problem of illegality in the Cuban economy is alive and well. In this regard, it is not unlike the rest of Latin America, where black markets flourish and up to 47 percent of its non-farm workers are in the informal economy. In Cuba, however, where the state has long prided itself on controlling all aspects of the political economy, the expansion of illegal and informal activities is something new again. Like in the days before the 1959 Revolution when corruption and organized crime flourished amidst high poverty and inequality, or the “special period” when the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a 33 precent contraction of Cuba’s GDP, most Cubans are struggling to survive. This time, they are also taking advantage of the gradual opening of the economy under Raúl Castro.

The “updating” of the socialist model, launched with some fanfare in 2011, is opening new opportunities for Cuban citizens to have some independence from the state. Under new regulations, small business enterprises and cooperatives, already covering nearly 450,000 workers, are set to expand to include such categories as real estate agents, construction workers and repair shops. Newly approved cooperatives in sectors such as construction, industry, transportation and restaurants will be able to use both national and convertible currencies, request bank loans and set prices according to market conditions.

The challenge for the current regime is to stimulate the economy through market-oriented reforms that also generate enough revenue to provide the high levels of health and education services that have distinguished Cuba from the rest of the region. It’s not clear if the changes implemented thus far are working – reliable data about the Cuban economy are notoriously difficult to obtain and often piecemeal. The proliferation of small businesses and family-run inns in Havana, fueled in part by a substantial rise in visitors and remittances from Cubans in the United States, is encouraging. On the other hand, compliance with tax regulations is uneven. According to the newspaper Granma, the Party’s organ, only 57 percent of individuals subject to a new transport tax on vehicle owners have paid it, even after an extension was granted. Even casual observation of the street economy tells us that tax evasion is probably widespread.

One of the core structural problems of the economy is the dual currency system in which most Cubans are paid in local pesos (CUPs) while foreigners and some sectors like tourism deal in convertible pesos (CUCs). The exchange rate of 24 CUPs to one CUC creates serious distortions throughout the economy and society. Professionally trained doctors, teachers and scientists, who must work for the state, earn about 20-30 CUCs a month, while a bartender or hotel maid can make the equivalent in a day. The result is brain drain, both internally as more highly skilled workers move to lower skilled jobs, and externally as people give up and leave the island for good. One public health expert told me that many Cuban health professionals on public duty missions in places like Brazil and Ecuador take up private practice on the side, earning enough to start a small business upon their return to Cuba or buy a house and live comfortable lives in their adopted countries.

One possible solution to the dual currency problem, according to international finance experts, is to unify the currency in one move, coupled with expanded subsidies and tax breaks and a healthy package of international financial assistance to cushion the blow. The 900 percent differential in the currencies’ values means that a “big bang” approach would inevitably generate serious winners (those in the hard currency economy) and losers (the majority of Cuban workers), a prospect any government would want to avoid if possible. A probable spike in inflation is also worrisome. The government appears to be taking a different approach by experimenting with a 10-1 exchange rate for certain state-owned enterprises like sugar, hotels and non-agricultural cooperatives.

We are witnessing today the unfolding of a transitional hybrid economy that has one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake. On one hand, a host of ongoing reforms in the domains of agriculture, tourism, property transfers, travel abroad and even sports are unshackling Cubans from a predominant state. President Obama’s decision in 2009 to relax U.S. travel and remittances rules has also helped give oxygen to the more liberal features of the reforms by providing seed money for new businesses and facilitating the flow of goods and capital from the Cuban diaspora in Florida. On the other hand, implementation of reforms is slow and often limited to pilot projects dispersed throughout the island. Rules for foreign investment are too restrictive and arbitrarily enforced and property rights remain in doubt.

Nonetheless, the package of changes underway in Cuba, under the auspices of Raúl Castro and other heroes of the Revolution, lends a certain political legitimacy to the project that could facilitate a soft landing for such a hard situation. As Richard Feinberg argues in a new Brookings report on the emerging middle classes due out this November, such a soft landing is already underway as small and medium enterprises and cooperatives gain traction. Castro’s announcement last year that his current five-year term will be his last, and the appointment of a much younger vice president to guide the party to the next phase of “prosperous socialism,” give Cubans I spoke to some hope that, in the next five years, Cuba will look even more different than it did five years ago.

A participant in a public forum on the national budget asks a question to a panel of government and academic experts in Havana. Photo credit: Ted Piccone

This shift is already visible. Open debates among Cuban citizens, including one I attended on the national budget process in a well-appointed theater organized by a leading public affairs magazine, are slowly underway. The Catholic Church is also playing an interesting role. The Conference of Catholic Bishops in Cuba recently released its first pastoral letter in 20 years endorsing the government’s economic liberalization and calling for a political opening that respects “the right to diversity with respect to thoughts, to creativity and to the search for truth.” Outspoken activists are touring European, Latin American and North American cities with their critiques of the current system and returning to the island determined to continue their campaign for greater freedoms, despite continued harassment and detentions. Change is in the tropical air.

As Cuba opens its economy to the world, and gradually finds the confidence to let Cubans be more open at home as well, the United States would be smart to move beyond the confines of its Cold War policy and let Americans see what they can do to support the Cuban people. President Obama can start by expanding the steps he took in his first term to facilitate greater trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people and budding small enterprises. He can also credibly remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which is severely hampering a whole host of basic financial transactions for legitimate American travelers and businesses alike. It is time to exploit the opportunity offered by Cuba’s economic reforms and let reconciliation – both within the island and across the Florida Straits – begin.

Authors

On September 27, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the local watchdogs of Cuba’s Communist Party, celebrated their 53rd anniversary with a series of street parties around the country. Neighbors danced around small bonfires and enjoyed potluck dinners into the late hours of the night, leaving Havana’s streets relatively deserted as I strolled downtown the following morning. President Raúl Castro and other party leaders marked the occasion by presiding over the CDR’s 8th Congress, where discussions about various problems, like the proliferation of illegal and “immoral” activities at the local level, were underway.

A sign proclaiming “Long live the CDR” hangs on the wall outside a local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution office the morning after street parties celebrating their 53rd anniversary. Photo credit: Ted Piccone

As I wandered the broken cobble-stoned corridors of Old Havana, I happened upon the Communist Party’s Museum of the CDR, its walls covered with homages to the heroes of the 1959 Revolution, framed greetings from the people of Vietnam and China and various replicas of the Cuban flag and other symbols of nationalist pride. As my guide at the CDR museum completed the tour, she quietly closed the door to the exhibit room, shyly asked for a small tip and then carefully hid the bill in a crumpled piece of paper.

Along the way, I had been approached by other friendly Cubans looking for a favor; one even suggested a trip to the grocery story to buy food for his child. My taxi driver was an aspiring lawyer who drove visitors around in an ailing Soviet-era Lada to earn hard currency on the side. A policeman chatted with fishermen along the famed Malecón as he watched two men in a small boat struggle for the day’s catch in front of a sign that said: no fishing boats allowed.

The problem of illegality in the Cuban economy is alive and well. In this regard, it is not unlike the rest of Latin America, where black markets flourish and up to 47 percent of its non-farm workers are in the informal economy. In Cuba, however, where the state has long prided itself on controlling all aspects of the political economy, the expansion of illegal and informal activities is something new again. Like in the days before the 1959 Revolution when corruption and organized crime flourished amidst high poverty and inequality, or the “special period” when the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a 33 precent contraction of Cuba’s GDP, most Cubans are struggling to survive. This time, they are also taking advantage of the gradual opening of the economy under Raúl Castro.

The “updating” of the socialist model, launched with some fanfare in 2011, is opening new opportunities for Cuban citizens to have some independence from the state. Under new regulations, small business enterprises and cooperatives, already covering nearly 450,000 workers, are set to expand to include such categories as real estate agents, construction workers and repair shops. Newly approved cooperatives in sectors such as construction, industry, transportation and restaurants will be able to use both national and convertible currencies, request bank loans and set prices according to market conditions.

The challenge for the current regime is to stimulate the economy through market-oriented reforms that also generate enough revenue to provide the high levels of health and education services that have distinguished Cuba from the rest of the region. It’s not clear if the changes implemented thus far are working – reliable data about the Cuban economy are notoriously difficult to obtain and often piecemeal. The proliferation of small businesses and family-run inns in Havana, fueled in part by a substantial rise in visitors and remittances from Cubans in the United States, is encouraging. On the other hand, compliance with tax regulations is uneven. According to the newspaper Granma, the Party’s organ, only 57 percent of individuals subject to a new transport tax on vehicle owners have paid it, even after an extension was granted. Even casual observation of the street economy tells us that tax evasion is probably widespread.

One of the core structural problems of the economy is the dual currency system in which most Cubans are paid in local pesos (CUPs) while foreigners and some sectors like tourism deal in convertible pesos (CUCs). The exchange rate of 24 CUPs to one CUC creates serious distortions throughout the economy and society. Professionally trained doctors, teachers and scientists, who must work for the state, earn about 20-30 CUCs a month, while a bartender or hotel maid can make the equivalent in a day. The result is brain drain, both internally as more highly skilled workers move to lower skilled jobs, and externally as people give up and leave the island for good. One public health expert told me that many Cuban health professionals on public duty missions in places like Brazil and Ecuador take up private practice on the side, earning enough to start a small business upon their return to Cuba or buy a house and live comfortable lives in their adopted countries.

One possible solution to the dual currency problem, according to international finance experts, is to unify the currency in one move, coupled with expanded subsidies and tax breaks and a healthy package of international financial assistance to cushion the blow. The 900 percent differential in the currencies’ values means that a “big bang” approach would inevitably generate serious winners (those in the hard currency economy) and losers (the majority of Cuban workers), a prospect any government would want to avoid if possible. A probable spike in inflation is also worrisome. The government appears to be taking a different approach by experimenting with a 10-1 exchange rate for certain state-owned enterprises like sugar, hotels and non-agricultural cooperatives.

We are witnessing today the unfolding of a transitional hybrid economy that has one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake. On one hand, a host of ongoing reforms in the domains of agriculture, tourism, property transfers, travel abroad and even sports are unshackling Cubans from a predominant state. President Obama’s decision in 2009 to relax U.S. travel and remittances rules has also helped give oxygen to the more liberal features of the reforms by providing seed money for new businesses and facilitating the flow of goods and capital from the Cuban diaspora in Florida. On the other hand, implementation of reforms is slow and often limited to pilot projects dispersed throughout the island. Rules for foreign investment are too restrictive and arbitrarily enforced and property rights remain in doubt.

Nonetheless, the package of changes underway in Cuba, under the auspices of Raúl Castro and other heroes of the Revolution, lends a certain political legitimacy to the project that could facilitate a soft landing for such a hard situation. As Richard Feinberg argues in a new Brookings report on the emerging middle classes due out this November, such a soft landing is already underway as small and medium enterprises and cooperatives gain traction. Castro’s announcement last year that his current five-year term will be his last, and the appointment of a much younger vice president to guide the party to the next phase of “prosperous socialism,” give Cubans I spoke to some hope that, in the next five years, Cuba will look even more different than it did five years ago.

A participant in a public forum on the national budget asks a question to a panel of government and academic experts in Havana. Photo credit: Ted Piccone

This shift is already visible. Open debates among Cuban citizens, including one I attended on the national budget process in a well-appointed theater organized by a leading public affairs magazine, are slowly underway. The Catholic Church is also playing an interesting role. The Conference of Catholic Bishops in Cuba recently released its first pastoral letter in 20 years endorsing the government’s economic liberalization and calling for a political opening that respects “the right to diversity with respect to thoughts, to creativity and to the search for truth.” Outspoken activists are touring European, Latin American and North American cities with their critiques of the current system and returning to the island determined to continue their campaign for greater freedoms, despite continued harassment and detentions. Change is in the tropical air.

As Cuba opens its economy to the world, and gradually finds the confidence to let Cubans be more open at home as well, the United States would be smart to move beyond the confines of its Cold War policy and let Americans see what they can do to support the Cuban people. President Obama can start by expanding the steps he took in his first term to facilitate greater trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people and budding small enterprises. He can also credibly remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which is severely hampering a whole host of basic financial transactions for legitimate American travelers and businesses alike. It is time to exploit the opportunity offered by Cuba’s economic reforms and let reconciliation – both within the island and across the Florida Straits – begin.

By thawing ice and warming ocean waters, global climate change is rapidly and drastically altering not only the Arctic’s unique environment, but also the economic and political dynamics among Arctic and non-Arctic states alike. This has primarily been stimulated by opening the region to unprecedented commercial opportunities, including the establishment of new shipping routes and expanded natural resource development and energy production. On June 13th and 14th, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow John Banks and I traveled to Helsinki and Lapland to explore the changing geopolitics of the High North through a Finnish lens, with a particular focus on the role of governance frameworks for offshore oil and gas exploration and development. Through bilateral meetings with government officials, briefings by a range of academics and industry experts, and a tour of an ice breaker – all organized in association with the Finnish Institute for International Affairs – we surveyed the implications of melting arctic ice for Finland’s economy and, more generally, for a region without streamlined offshore exploration and drilling regulatory infrastructure.

Timo Rautajoki, President of the Lapland Chamber of Commerce, and researchers at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland, projected investment flows into northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia to total somewhere between 100 and 120 billion Euros by 2020 and 162 billion Euros by 2050. Half of these expenditures are expected to be channeled towards oil and gas activities (and attendant infrastructure), and the remainder towards mining, transport, and wind projects. In Finland, prospects for large wind and biodiesel projects as well as an LNG import project at Tornio in the Gulf of Bothnia substantially brighten the country’s economic future. Indeed, the region’s economic prospects have darkened in the wake of Nokia’s decline in global competitiveness and have stalled nuclear power projects in northern Ostrobothnia. With the assurance of financial support and an economic “road map” from the government, key Finnish industrial players stand poised to fully harness the potential of natural resource reserves in the Finnish North.

...the economic significance of the Arctic region is growing exponentially, and the Finnish government needs to reflect on these paradigm shifts in its new policy formulation.

However, Finland’s newly drafted Arctic policy disappointingly overlooks the critical role of business in the High North, as well as the tremendous growth forecast for business across the region. The era of a Finnish North policy centered on the protection of the Sami people and the environment has ended; the economic significance of the Arctic region is growing exponentially, and the Finnish government needs to reflect on these paradigm shifts in its new policy formulation. Representatives from Aker, an Arctic technology company, emphasized that the Finnish policy must engage the business community to ensure both economic stability and adequate protection of the environment. John and I further concluded that any successful and environmentally conscious development of Arctic resources hinge not only on strengthened relationships between the private and public sectors of Arctic states, but also on increased legal and regulatory coordination among Arctic states themselves. This will consequently allow for enhanced regional economic integration.

These dialogues prompted us to evaluate the role of the Arctic Council in navigating the uncharted waters of new Arctic offshore oil and gas opportunities and in coordinating regional offshore governance. The Council’s ability to harmonize offshore regulations across Arctic states with disparate approaches to offshore operations (those of Russia were cited by several informants as particularly problematic), as well as across the ever-expanding legion of non-littoral states vying for a piece of the offshore action, is by no means universally acknowledged.

Some experts expressed concern that “binding documents” and broad platforms for transportation, drilling, and other offshore issues would either be reduced to the “lowest common denominator” or create rifts among Arctic states.

Some experts expressed concern that “binding documents” and broad platforms for transportation, drilling, and other offshore issues would either be reduced to the “lowest common denominator” or create rifts among Arctic states, others like Kamrul Hossein, a senior researcher at the Northern Institute for Energy and Minority Law, presented the Arctic Council as an optimal vehicle for forming transnational linkages. According to him, it is a viable platform to replace broad agreements that encompass several industries.

One of the central criticisms of the Council we confronted was its dependency on consensus and its resultant inability to act swiftly. This issue will only be exacerbated if new members continue to be admitted. This obstacle has raised several interesting questions about the future not only of the Arctic, but also of the Council itself: Would the Arctic Council function more effectively if endowed with powers via a formal treaty? Should the Council build relationships with other regional players, like governance institutions or oil and gas trade associations? Which states should the Council accept in its membership, and whom should it keep at a distance?

While we left Helsinki and Lapland with these questions unanswered, such challenges left us eager to continue to contribute to the vast body of Arctic research at Brookings, and earnest to observe how these questions are addressed by the United States as it assumes Arctic Council leadership in 2015.

Authors

By thawing ice and warming ocean waters, global climate change is rapidly and drastically altering not only the Arctic’s unique environment, but also the economic and political dynamics among Arctic and non-Arctic states alike. This has primarily been stimulated by opening the region to unprecedented commercial opportunities, including the establishment of new shipping routes and expanded natural resource development and energy production. On June 13th and 14th, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow John Banks and I traveled to Helsinki and Lapland to explore the changing geopolitics of the High North through a Finnish lens, with a particular focus on the role of governance frameworks for offshore oil and gas exploration and development. Through bilateral meetings with government officials, briefings by a range of academics and industry experts, and a tour of an ice breaker – all organized in association with the Finnish Institute for International Affairs – we surveyed the implications of melting arctic ice for Finland’s economy and, more generally, for a region without streamlined offshore exploration and drilling regulatory infrastructure.

Timo Rautajoki, President of the Lapland Chamber of Commerce, and researchers at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland, projected investment flows into northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia to total somewhere between 100 and 120 billion Euros by 2020 and 162 billion Euros by 2050. Half of these expenditures are expected to be channeled towards oil and gas activities (and attendant infrastructure), and the remainder towards mining, transport, and wind projects. In Finland, prospects for large wind and biodiesel projects as well as an LNG import project at Tornio in the Gulf of Bothnia substantially brighten the country’s economic future. Indeed, the region’s economic prospects have darkened in the wake of Nokia’s decline in global competitiveness and have stalled nuclear power projects in northern Ostrobothnia. With the assurance of financial support and an economic “road map” from the government, key Finnish industrial players stand poised to fully harness the potential of natural resource reserves in the Finnish North.

...the economic significance of the Arctic region is growing exponentially, and the Finnish government needs to reflect on these paradigm shifts in its new policy formulation.

However, Finland’s newly drafted Arctic policy disappointingly overlooks the critical role of business in the High North, as well as the tremendous growth forecast for business across the region. The era of a Finnish North policy centered on the protection of the Sami people and the environment has ended; the economic significance of the Arctic region is growing exponentially, and the Finnish government needs to reflect on these paradigm shifts in its new policy formulation. Representatives from Aker, an Arctic technology company, emphasized that the Finnish policy must engage the business community to ensure both economic stability and adequate protection of the environment. John and I further concluded that any successful and environmentally conscious development of Arctic resources hinge not only on strengthened relationships between the private and public sectors of Arctic states, but also on increased legal and regulatory coordination among Arctic states themselves. This will consequently allow for enhanced regional economic integration.

These dialogues prompted us to evaluate the role of the Arctic Council in navigating the uncharted waters of new Arctic offshore oil and gas opportunities and in coordinating regional offshore governance. The Council’s ability to harmonize offshore regulations across Arctic states with disparate approaches to offshore operations (those of Russia were cited by several informants as particularly problematic), as well as across the ever-expanding legion of non-littoral states vying for a piece of the offshore action, is by no means universally acknowledged.

Some experts expressed concern that “binding documents” and broad platforms for transportation, drilling, and other offshore issues would either be reduced to the “lowest common denominator” or create rifts among Arctic states.

Some experts expressed concern that “binding documents” and broad platforms for transportation, drilling, and other offshore issues would either be reduced to the “lowest common denominator” or create rifts among Arctic states, others like Kamrul Hossein, a senior researcher at the Northern Institute for Energy and Minority Law, presented the Arctic Council as an optimal vehicle for forming transnational linkages. According to him, it is a viable platform to replace broad agreements that encompass several industries.

One of the central criticisms of the Council we confronted was its dependency on consensus and its resultant inability to act swiftly. This issue will only be exacerbated if new members continue to be admitted. This obstacle has raised several interesting questions about the future not only of the Arctic, but also of the Council itself: Would the Arctic Council function more effectively if endowed with powers via a formal treaty? Should the Council build relationships with other regional players, like governance institutions or oil and gas trade associations? Which states should the Council accept in its membership, and whom should it keep at a distance?

While we left Helsinki and Lapland with these questions unanswered, such challenges left us eager to continue to contribute to the vast body of Arctic research at Brookings, and earnest to observe how these questions are addressed by the United States as it assumes Arctic Council leadership in 2015.

I recently spent 10 days in June traveling through Jordan and Lebanon with representatives of UNHCR and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to witness firsthand the situation of Syrian refugees and to learn whatever I could from the refugees themselves about internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Syria. During the course of our trip, we talked with some 80 UN, NGO, government and civil society representatives and met with nearly 20 refugee families in the two countries. We visited refugees living in rented apartments (including a six-story walk-up), in a focus group at Za’atari refugee camp, and in the dusty fields around informal settlements. Everywhere children swarmed around us, reminding us that half of the Syrian refugee population is made up of kids. We traveled in SUVs with UNHCR drivers; while we didn’t feel that we were in danger, particularly in Lebanon (and especially in Tripoli and the Bekaa Valley) we were conscious of security restrictions. These are some of my impressions from the trip.

Internal displacement

Because my work focuses on IDPs, and since travel to Syria seemed impossible, I asked everyone we encountered what they knew or had heard about people displaced back in Syria. The official estimates are that there are more than 5 million Syrians who have been displaced from their homes but remain within Syria.

Everyone agreed that internal displacement was widespread and dynamic. Around half of the 20 refugee families we spoke with said that they had been displaced internally at least twice before making the move to cross a border. The other half lived within a day's travel of the border and had come directly from their homes (usually because of a dramatic triggering event such as bombardment or release of a family member from detention.) We were told that those arriving as refugees were from the areas nearest the borders of Lebanon and Jordan; people displaced in the eastern part of the country simply weren't able to travel to a border.

A Jordanian government representative stated that Jordan “was the fourth stop for Syrians. Syrian refugees had been displaced an average of 3 times internally before making it to Jordan.” He also pointed out that there were 250,000 IDPs in Southern Syria within 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) of the Jordanian border and advocated for cross-border operations to assist them so that they wouldn't try to cross into Jordan. He said that there were some 6 million Syrians living within 100 kilometers of the Jordanian border (including Damascus).

'The battle for Damascus has not yet begun' was a refrain repeated by many. When asked what was the 'best-case scenario' every person replied, 'the status quo.'

The Jordanian government representative - and every single person we talked with - felt that the situation was going to get much worse. 'The battle for Damascus has not yet begun' was a refrain repeated by many. When asked what was the 'best-case scenario' every person replied, 'the status quo.'

We heard numerous stories of people unable to leave Syria; some were displaced in areas where the roads to the border were simply too dangerous (landmines, kidnappings) and others were waiting until it was safe to travel. I was struck by the many refugees who said they had displaced family members back home, waiting for a detained male relative to be released before traveling.

Additionally, we heard that many IDPs are now moving to government-controlled areas, not because they support the government, but because those areas were perceived to be safer than rebel-controlled areas (at least now after the recent Syrian government's military gains). While recent figures indicated that there are 854 public shelters inside Syria hosting 173,626 IDPs, (4.1 percent of IDPs), we were informed that many IDPs are afraid to approach these public shelters because of the presence of Syrian military/guards out front. The lucky ones are living with relatives or renting accommodations. Most are living in abandoned buildings or have pitched tents on vacant lots.

Al-Qusair was a town of 30-40,000 which fell to government troops while we were in the region. A UN assessment team managed to travel there a couple of weeks ago and found that the town had been completely destroyed and only 10-12 civilian families remained (who had come back only to see their property and recover what they could before moving on.) Where did all of those people go, I wondered? Some crossed over as refugees, of course, but certainly not all. I wondered where they were hiding, how they were surviving.

My impression is that the Syrians who have not crossed the border (either IDPs or those that remain at home) are probably even more vulnerable than the refugees. The elderly, people with disabilities, pregnant women simply have a harder time traveling than those who are younger and healthier. But information on those who remain behind is hard to come by.

And then there are the refugees.

Those Syrians who have managed to cross over as refugees into neighboring countries face a dire situation. New arrivals in Jordan are taken to Za’atari refugee camp which is an awful place, with serious security problems. The UNHCR camp manager who met with us coughed from tear gas used to break up a protest shortly before we arrived. A guard at a school we visited was stabbed in the chest two hours after we were there - another protest. The night before our visit a group of young boys had dismantled and moved a police station. Although we didn’t see any weapons in the camp, the relationship between the camp and the nearby fighting was hard to ignore: the regularly scheduled buses taking single young men back to Syria from the camp every day, the general acceptance that Free Syrian Army soldiers on R&R in the camp needed prostitutes and in the recruitment of young men and boys into the FSA (not quite forced recruitment, as most of the boys have nothing to do in the camp and the resistance has been portrayed as glamorous.)

Education for refugee children is lacking everywhere in the region. In Za’atari there are 6000 places in schools and at least 50,000 children of school age. There is frequent vandalism, widespread looting and a brisk trade in relief items (Za’atari has a population of 120,000 but 200,000 active ration cards.) The camp manager told us, “this makes Mogadishu look like a holiday.” He explained that at least in Mogadishu there was a safe haven in the compound, but in Za’atari there was no place for international staff to hide if anything got out of hand: “We'd be sitting ducks in our tents and containers.” This comment has been much in my mind since the recent attack on the UN compound in Mogadishu where the staff, at least, could find a safe place when the violence erupted.

Urban refugees in Jordan (80 percent of the refugees in that country) seem to face increasing rejection, discrimination and impoverishment. When we left one refugee family's apartment, the women said,”you're so lucky.” We asked what they meant. ”You get to leave,” she replied, ”We haven't left the apartment in months because we're afraid to go out. We can tell our neighbors don’t like us.”

A recent Jordan Times poll found that 70 percent of Jordanians want the border closed.

The number of Syrians arriving in Jordan has decreased and we heard different reasons for the falling numbers. Some said the decrease was due to increased fighting on the Syrian side which made it more difficult for refugees to reach the border. Others worried that the Jordanian government is restricting the entry of refugees. Arrivals one month ago averaged about 3000 per night. Now they’re down to about 500 (after stopping entirely for a week in May). Even an NGO representative, obviously sympathetic to the refugees, said “if I were the Jordanian government, I'd close the border today. This is just unsustainable.” We heard stories (perhaps hearsay, but repeated nonetheless) of Jordanians who couldn't get medicine from a pharmacy or whose elderly relatives couldn't get necessary operations because the hospitals were crowded with refugees.

The situation in Jordan is bad, but it is sadly much worse in Lebanon. The caretaker government is weak, unable to make decisions and apparently deadlocked between Hezbollah and other factions. It is widely believed that the government does not have the capacity to control the border (which is perhaps why the Lebanese border remains open to Syrians.)

Sectarian conflict within Lebanon is increasing; there are armed skirmishes almost daily in Tripoli and the border regions. The entry of 550,000 Sunni Muslims (in addition to the 500,000 Syrian migrant workers in the country prior to the crisis) into the country is changing the country's demography and thus potentially the balance of power within Lebanon. Lebanon has long been divided into religious communities since its civil war, but the ubiquitous presence of the refugees is challenging these settlement patterns. Large numbers of Sunni refugees are now living in the Bekaa Valley, including in neighborhoods that are Hezbollah strongholds. The political tension in Lebanon is palpable: people are expecting the worst and feeling trapped. As one Lebanese told us over coffee, ”when Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, hundreds of thousands fled to Syria. That's now closed. There will be nowhere to flee if war breaks out again.”

There are no refugee camps in Lebanon so the refugees live everywhere - abandoned schools, half-finished buildings, empty lots. As in Jordan, the initial hospitality and solidarity has worn thin. In some cases refugees are able to find work in the informal sector but wages have decreased and jobs are scarce. And while there are some who have clearly benefited economically from the influx of refugees (such as landlords), many Jordanians and Lebanese have suffered from the pressure on public services and resources. The Lebanese economy has plummeted and tourism and investment are way down. We stayed in the high-rise luxury Sheraton hotel but I never saw more than 5 people at breakfast.

My feeling is that things will only get worse for the refugees and for the countries that host them. The money that refugees were able to bring with them is running out. Refugees who spent their initial savings on rent and can no longer pay are facing evictions (a phenomenon likely to increase in the coming months). Crime, we were told, has increased 30-40 percent in Lebanon; people have been caught stealing, among other things, diapers and infant formula, items not covered by the food vouchers. How do people survive without cash, I wonder? Even when they receive food vouchers, refugees still have to pay rent or else face eviction. They need money to pay bus fares or to call relatives back in Syria. If the United Nations doesn’t get the funds it needs to continue its assistance to the refugees, it will have to cut its programs and come up with ways of targeting the most vulnerable. I can’t imagine how this will play out in practice.

No one we talked with is thinking about solutions to displacement. My sense is that everyone is running at full-speed to respond to the immediate crisis. But thought must be given now to what will happen in Syria in the coming years. The war is likely to last a long time (most people we talked with predicted a duration of 10-15 years). Without exception every single refugee we spoke with said they wanted to go home as soon as possible. But even if the war were to end tomorrow, the challenges of preventing a sectarian bloodbath, physical rebuilding of decimated towns, restoring the economy, developing transitional justice mechanisms and so on will take years. It is likely to be a long time before Syrian refugees and IDPs are able to return.

Authors

I recently spent 10 days in June traveling through Jordan and Lebanon with representatives of UNHCR and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to witness firsthand the situation of Syrian refugees and to learn whatever I could from the refugees themselves about internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Syria. During the course of our trip, we talked with some 80 UN, NGO, government and civil society representatives and met with nearly 20 refugee families in the two countries. We visited refugees living in rented apartments (including a six-story walk-up), in a focus group at Za’atari refugee camp, and in the dusty fields around informal settlements. Everywhere children swarmed around us, reminding us that half of the Syrian refugee population is made up of kids. We traveled in SUVs with UNHCR drivers; while we didn’t feel that we were in danger, particularly in Lebanon (and especially in Tripoli and the Bekaa Valley) we were conscious of security restrictions. These are some of my impressions from the trip.

Internal displacement

Because my work focuses on IDPs, and since travel to Syria seemed impossible, I asked everyone we encountered what they knew or had heard about people displaced back in Syria. The official estimates are that there are more than 5 million Syrians who have been displaced from their homes but remain within Syria.

Everyone agreed that internal displacement was widespread and dynamic. Around half of the 20 refugee families we spoke with said that they had been displaced internally at least twice before making the move to cross a border. The other half lived within a day's travel of the border and had come directly from their homes (usually because of a dramatic triggering event such as bombardment or release of a family member from detention.) We were told that those arriving as refugees were from the areas nearest the borders of Lebanon and Jordan; people displaced in the eastern part of the country simply weren't able to travel to a border.

A Jordanian government representative stated that Jordan “was the fourth stop for Syrians. Syrian refugees had been displaced an average of 3 times internally before making it to Jordan.” He also pointed out that there were 250,000 IDPs in Southern Syria within 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) of the Jordanian border and advocated for cross-border operations to assist them so that they wouldn't try to cross into Jordan. He said that there were some 6 million Syrians living within 100 kilometers of the Jordanian border (including Damascus).

'The battle for Damascus has not yet begun' was a refrain repeated by many. When asked what was the 'best-case scenario' every person replied, 'the status quo.'

The Jordanian government representative - and every single person we talked with - felt that the situation was going to get much worse. 'The battle for Damascus has not yet begun' was a refrain repeated by many. When asked what was the 'best-case scenario' every person replied, 'the status quo.'

We heard numerous stories of people unable to leave Syria; some were displaced in areas where the roads to the border were simply too dangerous (landmines, kidnappings) and others were waiting until it was safe to travel. I was struck by the many refugees who said they had displaced family members back home, waiting for a detained male relative to be released before traveling.

Additionally, we heard that many IDPs are now moving to government-controlled areas, not because they support the government, but because those areas were perceived to be safer than rebel-controlled areas (at least now after the recent Syrian government's military gains). While recent figures indicated that there are 854 public shelters inside Syria hosting 173,626 IDPs, (4.1 percent of IDPs), we were informed that many IDPs are afraid to approach these public shelters because of the presence of Syrian military/guards out front. The lucky ones are living with relatives or renting accommodations. Most are living in abandoned buildings or have pitched tents on vacant lots.

Al-Qusair was a town of 30-40,000 which fell to government troops while we were in the region. A UN assessment team managed to travel there a couple of weeks ago and found that the town had been completely destroyed and only 10-12 civilian families remained (who had come back only to see their property and recover what they could before moving on.) Where did all of those people go, I wondered? Some crossed over as refugees, of course, but certainly not all. I wondered where they were hiding, how they were surviving.

My impression is that the Syrians who have not crossed the border (either IDPs or those that remain at home) are probably even more vulnerable than the refugees. The elderly, people with disabilities, pregnant women simply have a harder time traveling than those who are younger and healthier. But information on those who remain behind is hard to come by.

And then there are the refugees.

Those Syrians who have managed to cross over as refugees into neighboring countries face a dire situation. New arrivals in Jordan are taken to Za’atari refugee camp which is an awful place, with serious security problems. The UNHCR camp manager who met with us coughed from tear gas used to break up a protest shortly before we arrived. A guard at a school we visited was stabbed in the chest two hours after we were there - another protest. The night before our visit a group of young boys had dismantled and moved a police station. Although we didn’t see any weapons in the camp, the relationship between the camp and the nearby fighting was hard to ignore: the regularly scheduled buses taking single young men back to Syria from the camp every day, the general acceptance that Free Syrian Army soldiers on R&R in the camp needed prostitutes and in the recruitment of young men and boys into the FSA (not quite forced recruitment, as most of the boys have nothing to do in the camp and the resistance has been portrayed as glamorous.)

Education for refugee children is lacking everywhere in the region. In Za’atari there are 6000 places in schools and at least 50,000 children of school age. There is frequent vandalism, widespread looting and a brisk trade in relief items (Za’atari has a population of 120,000 but 200,000 active ration cards.) The camp manager told us, “this makes Mogadishu look like a holiday.” He explained that at least in Mogadishu there was a safe haven in the compound, but in Za’atari there was no place for international staff to hide if anything got out of hand: “We'd be sitting ducks in our tents and containers.” This comment has been much in my mind since the recent attack on the UN compound in Mogadishu where the staff, at least, could find a safe place when the violence erupted.

Urban refugees in Jordan (80 percent of the refugees in that country) seem to face increasing rejection, discrimination and impoverishment. When we left one refugee family's apartment, the women said,”you're so lucky.” We asked what they meant. ”You get to leave,” she replied, ”We haven't left the apartment in months because we're afraid to go out. We can tell our neighbors don’t like us.”

A recent Jordan Times poll found that 70 percent of Jordanians want the border closed.

The number of Syrians arriving in Jordan has decreased and we heard different reasons for the falling numbers. Some said the decrease was due to increased fighting on the Syrian side which made it more difficult for refugees to reach the border. Others worried that the Jordanian government is restricting the entry of refugees. Arrivals one month ago averaged about 3000 per night. Now they’re down to about 500 (after stopping entirely for a week in May). Even an NGO representative, obviously sympathetic to the refugees, said “if I were the Jordanian government, I'd close the border today. This is just unsustainable.” We heard stories (perhaps hearsay, but repeated nonetheless) of Jordanians who couldn't get medicine from a pharmacy or whose elderly relatives couldn't get necessary operations because the hospitals were crowded with refugees.

The situation in Jordan is bad, but it is sadly much worse in Lebanon. The caretaker government is weak, unable to make decisions and apparently deadlocked between Hezbollah and other factions. It is widely believed that the government does not have the capacity to control the border (which is perhaps why the Lebanese border remains open to Syrians.)

Sectarian conflict within Lebanon is increasing; there are armed skirmishes almost daily in Tripoli and the border regions. The entry of 550,000 Sunni Muslims (in addition to the 500,000 Syrian migrant workers in the country prior to the crisis) into the country is changing the country's demography and thus potentially the balance of power within Lebanon. Lebanon has long been divided into religious communities since its civil war, but the ubiquitous presence of the refugees is challenging these settlement patterns. Large numbers of Sunni refugees are now living in the Bekaa Valley, including in neighborhoods that are Hezbollah strongholds. The political tension in Lebanon is palpable: people are expecting the worst and feeling trapped. As one Lebanese told us over coffee, ”when Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, hundreds of thousands fled to Syria. That's now closed. There will be nowhere to flee if war breaks out again.”

There are no refugee camps in Lebanon so the refugees live everywhere - abandoned schools, half-finished buildings, empty lots. As in Jordan, the initial hospitality and solidarity has worn thin. In some cases refugees are able to find work in the informal sector but wages have decreased and jobs are scarce. And while there are some who have clearly benefited economically from the influx of refugees (such as landlords), many Jordanians and Lebanese have suffered from the pressure on public services and resources. The Lebanese economy has plummeted and tourism and investment are way down. We stayed in the high-rise luxury Sheraton hotel but I never saw more than 5 people at breakfast.

My feeling is that things will only get worse for the refugees and for the countries that host them. The money that refugees were able to bring with them is running out. Refugees who spent their initial savings on rent and can no longer pay are facing evictions (a phenomenon likely to increase in the coming months). Crime, we were told, has increased 30-40 percent in Lebanon; people have been caught stealing, among other things, diapers and infant formula, items not covered by the food vouchers. How do people survive without cash, I wonder? Even when they receive food vouchers, refugees still have to pay rent or else face eviction. They need money to pay bus fares or to call relatives back in Syria. If the United Nations doesn’t get the funds it needs to continue its assistance to the refugees, it will have to cut its programs and come up with ways of targeting the most vulnerable. I can’t imagine how this will play out in practice.

No one we talked with is thinking about solutions to displacement. My sense is that everyone is running at full-speed to respond to the immediate crisis. But thought must be given now to what will happen in Syria in the coming years. The war is likely to last a long time (most people we talked with predicted a duration of 10-15 years). Without exception every single refugee we spoke with said they wanted to go home as soon as possible. But even if the war were to end tomorrow, the challenges of preventing a sectarian bloodbath, physical rebuilding of decimated towns, restoring the economy, developing transitional justice mechanisms and so on will take years. It is likely to be a long time before Syrian refugees and IDPs are able to return.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/04/22-ukraine-crossroads-europe-pifer?rssid=trip+reports{3074E97D-99C5-460F-B4E7-5231AC0CEDAB}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/66360245/0/brookingsrss/series/tripreports~Ukraine-at-a-Crossroads-with-EuropeUkraine at a Crossroads with Europe?

The Kyiv Security Forum, held in the Ukrainian capital on April 18-19, brought together Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans to discuss the current challenges facing Ukraine. Much of the discussion centered on Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union, in particular on whether Kyiv will make sufficient progress in meeting EU conditions to permit signature in November of an EU-Ukraine association agreement.

Several speakers asserted that Ukraine is at a crossroads with Europe. “Ukraine is at a crossroads” has been written or said so many times over the past 20 years that it has become something of a cliché. This time, however, it may be for real. The choices that Kyiv makes in the next weeks and months will determine whether Ukraine moves closer to Europe or whether the EU-Ukraine relationship gets stuck on hold.

EU and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the association agreement at the end of 2011. It would significantly deepen Ukraine’s links with the European Union. Among other things, it includes a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that would open up large segments of the EU’s economy to Ukrainian exports. It is a big deal.

Although the association agreement was initialed in early 2012, it has since sat in limbo. The European Union has declined to sign given growing concerns over the past two years about negative developments regarding democracy within Ukraine.

EU officials have asked Kyiv to make progress on three conditions—implementation of its general reform agenda, reform of its electoral law, and an end to selective prosecution—in order to permit signature of the agreement at the EU Eastern Partnership summit in November. These conditions were reaffirmed at an EU-Ukraine summit in February, which called for “concrete progress” by May.

Many regard the third condition as the most critical. More than a dozen senior members of the opposition have been sent to jail since President Victor Yanukovych took office in 2010. Most attention focuses on the case of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko. She was convicted in 2011 for signing a gas contract with Russia in a trial that received broad criticism in the West. The near unanimous view in European capitals and Washington holds that Tymoshenko is a victim of selective prosecution. On the day her conviction was announced, even Moscow joined in the barrage of condemnation of the verdict.

In the seven weeks since the EU-Ukraine summit, there has been good news and bad news. The good news: Yanukovych pardoned Yuriy Lutsenko, a leading opposition leader, along with one other opposition member.

The bad news: Serhiy Vlasenko, Tymoshenko’s lawyer, was stripped of his membership in the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) on grounds that he could not hold his Rada seat and continue his legal work. Critics cite this as another selective application of the rules, as many Rada members, including in the pro-government Regions Party, hold outside jobs that would appear to contravene the rule. And more bad news: the Prosecutor General is pursing another case against Tymoshenko, alleging her involvement in the 1996 murder of businessman Yevhen Shcherban. Given the many questions about how the 2011 trial was conducted, few analysts have confidence that this legal process will be objective.

At the Kyiv Security Forum, several speakers made clear the key importance that Europe attaches to what happens to Tymoshenko. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Vice President of the European People’s Party—the European Parliamentary party with which Tymoshenko’s party is affiliated—took a stark position: Tymoshenko had to be released, or there would be no signature in November, and Ukraine would miss its window of opportunity with the European Union. EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski cautioned that Kyiv had to understand that the European Union only accepted democratic states that abided by the rule of law. European Parliament member Pawel Robert-Kowal warned that, even if the association agreement were signed, Ukraine had to demonstrate real progress, as the agreement would face the challenge of ratification by 27 individual EU member states.

During and on the margins of the conference, some Ukrainians expressed optimism that the Ukrainian government would take a positive step regarding Tymoshenko. Others doubted that Yanukovych would take any action on his archrival. Some expected the Ukrainian government to try to do the minimum necessary in order to argue that it had met the EU conditions and assert that freeing Lutsenko, but not Tymoshenko, should prove sufficient progress on the condition of selective prosecution.

Right now, EU member states appear to be split. Some, primarily in Central Europe and the Baltic region, do not want to delay signature of the association agreement over Tymoshenko. They fear that Ukraine might otherwise drift into Russia’s orbit.

Other EU member states, apparently now in the majority, believe Kyiv must do more to show its commitment to European democratic values. France and Germany lead this group. The fate of Tymoshenko has become a domestic issue in Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 17 that, “if the Yuliya Tymoshenko case is not settled, the association agreement cannot be signed.” Ukrainian diplomats understand that Berlin presents the toughest case to win over.

Although the European Union and Ukraine have agreed that concrete progress should be made by May, that might not prove a hard deadline for an EU decision on whether or not to sign the association agreement in November. Some in Kyiv believe a final EU decision could wait until later in the year, perhaps as late as October.

The question remains, regardless of when the European Union decides: will Ukraine do enough to secure signature? That may turn on Tymoshenko’s fate—and how badly Yanukovych wants the association agreement.

Neither Brussels nor Kyiv appear to have a Plan B in case the association agreement is not signed. In late March, Tombinski warned that, if the agreement were not signed in November, the press of other EU business in 2014 and the Ukrainian presidential election in 2015 would put Ukraine and the association agreement on the back-burner until late 2015. Another European diplomat recently suggested the delay would last until 2016.

Ukrainians do not want to think about what happens if the association agreement is not signed. But they expect a failure to sign to be warmly welcomed in Moscow, to be followed by a greater Russian push to draw Ukraine into the Customs Union that currently includes Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Yanukovych thus far has resisted joining the Customs Union. Doing so would be incompatible with a free trade agreement with the European Union and would essentially kill the association agreement—which is almost certainly Moscow’s objective.

So, Ukraine may indeed be facing a critical crossroads. It is one where the key choices are as much about Yanukovych’s domestic policy—how democracy will develop and how the opposition is treated—as they are about foreign policy. If Yanukovych makes the right choices, he will take an important step in integrating Ukraine into Europe. If he makes the wrong choices, he risks miring the country in a gray zone between Europe and Russia and having to face Moscow’s pressure with a severely weakened hand.

Editor's note: Steven Pifer, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe and a former ambassador to Ukraine, was in Ukraine April 18-20 to attend the Kyiv Security Forum.

Authors

The Kyiv Security Forum, held in the Ukrainian capital on April 18-19, brought together Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans to discuss the current challenges facing Ukraine. Much of the discussion centered on Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union, in particular on whether Kyiv will make sufficient progress in meeting EU conditions to permit signature in November of an EU-Ukraine association agreement.

Several speakers asserted that Ukraine is at a crossroads with Europe. “Ukraine is at a crossroads” has been written or said so many times over the past 20 years that it has become something of a cliché. This time, however, it may be for real. The choices that Kyiv makes in the next weeks and months will determine whether Ukraine moves closer to Europe or whether the EU-Ukraine relationship gets stuck on hold.

EU and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the association agreement at the end of 2011. It would significantly deepen Ukraine’s links with the European Union. Among other things, it includes a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that would open up large segments of the EU’s economy to Ukrainian exports. It is a big deal.

Although the association agreement was initialed in early 2012, it has since sat in limbo. The European Union has declined to sign given growing concerns over the past two years about negative developments regarding democracy within Ukraine.

EU officials have asked Kyiv to make progress on three conditions—implementation of its general reform agenda, reform of its electoral law, and an end to selective prosecution—in order to permit signature of the agreement at the EU Eastern Partnership summit in November. These conditions were reaffirmed at an EU-Ukraine summit in February, which called for “concrete progress” by May.

Many regard the third condition as the most critical. More than a dozen senior members of the opposition have been sent to jail since President Victor Yanukovych took office in 2010. Most attention focuses on the case of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko. She was convicted in 2011 for signing a gas contract with Russia in a trial that received broad criticism in the West. The near unanimous view in European capitals and Washington holds that Tymoshenko is a victim of selective prosecution. On the day her conviction was announced, even Moscow joined in the barrage of condemnation of the verdict.

In the seven weeks since the EU-Ukraine summit, there has been good news and bad news. The good news: Yanukovych pardoned Yuriy Lutsenko, a leading opposition leader, along with one other opposition member.

The bad news: Serhiy Vlasenko, Tymoshenko’s lawyer, was stripped of his membership in the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) on grounds that he could not hold his Rada seat and continue his legal work. Critics cite this as another selective application of the rules, as many Rada members, including in the pro-government Regions Party, hold outside jobs that would appear to contravene the rule. And more bad news: the Prosecutor General is pursing another case against Tymoshenko, alleging her involvement in the 1996 murder of businessman Yevhen Shcherban. Given the many questions about how the 2011 trial was conducted, few analysts have confidence that this legal process will be objective.

At the Kyiv Security Forum, several speakers made clear the key importance that Europe attaches to what happens to Tymoshenko. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Vice President of the European People’s Party—the European Parliamentary party with which Tymoshenko’s party is affiliated—took a stark position: Tymoshenko had to be released, or there would be no signature in November, and Ukraine would miss its window of opportunity with the European Union. EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski cautioned that Kyiv had to understand that the European Union only accepted democratic states that abided by the rule of law. European Parliament member Pawel Robert-Kowal warned that, even if the association agreement were signed, Ukraine had to demonstrate real progress, as the agreement would face the challenge of ratification by 27 individual EU member states.

During and on the margins of the conference, some Ukrainians expressed optimism that the Ukrainian government would take a positive step regarding Tymoshenko. Others doubted that Yanukovych would take any action on his archrival. Some expected the Ukrainian government to try to do the minimum necessary in order to argue that it had met the EU conditions and assert that freeing Lutsenko, but not Tymoshenko, should prove sufficient progress on the condition of selective prosecution.

Right now, EU member states appear to be split. Some, primarily in Central Europe and the Baltic region, do not want to delay signature of the association agreement over Tymoshenko. They fear that Ukraine might otherwise drift into Russia’s orbit.

Other EU member states, apparently now in the majority, believe Kyiv must do more to show its commitment to European democratic values. France and Germany lead this group. The fate of Tymoshenko has become a domestic issue in Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 17 that, “if the Yuliya Tymoshenko case is not settled, the association agreement cannot be signed.” Ukrainian diplomats understand that Berlin presents the toughest case to win over.

Although the European Union and Ukraine have agreed that concrete progress should be made by May, that might not prove a hard deadline for an EU decision on whether or not to sign the association agreement in November. Some in Kyiv believe a final EU decision could wait until later in the year, perhaps as late as October.

The question remains, regardless of when the European Union decides: will Ukraine do enough to secure signature? That may turn on Tymoshenko’s fate—and how badly Yanukovych wants the association agreement.

Neither Brussels nor Kyiv appear to have a Plan B in case the association agreement is not signed. In late March, Tombinski warned that, if the agreement were not signed in November, the press of other EU business in 2014 and the Ukrainian presidential election in 2015 would put Ukraine and the association agreement on the back-burner until late 2015. Another European diplomat recently suggested the delay would last until 2016.

Ukrainians do not want to think about what happens if the association agreement is not signed. But they expect a failure to sign to be warmly welcomed in Moscow, to be followed by a greater Russian push to draw Ukraine into the Customs Union that currently includes Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Yanukovych thus far has resisted joining the Customs Union. Doing so would be incompatible with a free trade agreement with the European Union and would essentially kill the association agreement—which is almost certainly Moscow’s objective.

So, Ukraine may indeed be facing a critical crossroads. It is one where the key choices are as much about Yanukovych’s domestic policy—how democracy will develop and how the opposition is treated—as they are about foreign policy. If Yanukovych makes the right choices, he will take an important step in integrating Ukraine into Europe. If he makes the wrong choices, he risks miring the country in a gray zone between Europe and Russia and having to face Moscow’s pressure with a severely weakened hand.

Editor's note: Steven Pifer, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe and a former ambassador to Ukraine, was in Ukraine April 18-20 to attend the Kyiv Security Forum.

Hundreds of cages with birds, lizards, bats, and mammals were stacked upon one another, with tens or sometimes even hundreds of specimens crammed into one cage. Several dozen white-eyes (a bird genus) were squeezed into a cage appropriate for one canary. At least a hundred bats were stuffed into another container. In a cage atop this stack, more than fifty green agama dragon lizards, some dead, with their bodies rotting amidst those still alive, were desperately competing on the ceiling of their container for a little of bit space. Two baby civets, on sale for 400,000 Indonesia rupiah each (about USD 40) were shoved into an adjacent box. Like the rest of the unfortunate animals – squirrels, chipmunks, black-naped orioles, drongos, leafbirds, shamas, mynas, partridges, and the highly-prized and highly-threatened lories – the civets had no water and no protection from the full blast of the hot Indonesian sun. Many of the animals would die in this (in)famous Yogyakarta bird market before they were sold to new owners.

Meanwhile, however, the Yogyakarta bird market, like other wildlife markets in Indonesia and East Asia, serves as a perfect incubator for diseases that can mutate and jump among species, such as avian influenza and SARS. Such zoogenic diseases could potentially set off a catastrophic pandemic killing millions of people. The spread of the viruses to domestic animals and people is exacerbated by the trade in roosters for cock-fights, also on sale in the market amidst the wild-caught birds and animals. Even the animals sold before they die in the hands of their traders often do not survive as household pets – typically the fate of species such as woodpeckers, eagles, and owls.

The inhumane treatment of the animals in the many wildlife markets I visited during my research across the Indonesian archipelago was as heart-wrenching as the devastation this unmitigated trade in wild birds and other animals wreaks upon Indonesia’s ecosystems. Orange-headed thrushes and white-crested laughing thrushes, available in cages to eager buyers, are now exceedingly rare in the remnants of Indonesia’s forests, for example.

To reduce the consternation and criticism of international tourists, Yogyakarta’s wildlife market was moved more out of sight – away from its previous location next the frequently visited old royal palace. Nevertheless, enterprising Indonesian young men on motorcycles still bring Western tourists to the market’s new location. A young German woman, with a Lonely Planet Indonesia guidebook tucked in her purse, was eagerly taking photos of the cages, her very short shorts and tanktop as much an affront to Indonesia’s cultural sensitivities in this conservative Muslim city as the appalling conditions of the traded animals are to Westerners. An emblematic introduction to the fusion and confusion of conflicting values in this modernizing yet tradition-bound country?

Hunters and Buyers

In the Indonesian Market

Indonesian buyers and sellers rarely exhibit any qualms about the ecological impacts of the trade and the conditions of the animals. Wildlife trade, particularly in birds, is deeply entrenched in Java’s culture. A Javanese proverb states that every man should have a house, a horse (these days often interpreted as a car, or at least a motorcycle), a wife, a kris (a traditional dagger), and a bird. Because of this strongly-held tradition, at least one third of Javanese households keeps birds, I was told by representatives of a joint international-Indonesian environmental NGO, whom I interviewed on the condition of anonymity. Indeed, strolling through middle-class neighborhoods of Javanese towns reveals house after house with several cages of prinias, bulbuls, orioles, laughing thrushes. Eerily, however, there are precious few birds in the Javanese countryside, most having been caught by traders.

The bird trade is so culturally-ingrained that only some environmental NGOs operating in Indonesia dare oppose it. “Our current priority is to preserve and try to rehabilitate the devastated Indonesian ecosystems. The bird trade is just too difficult; too culturally sensitive. Attempting to stop it could get us shut down or hamper our other operations, such as trying to restore at least a tiny sliver of Indonesia’s lowlands forests. The Indonesian police are not interested in the bird trade anyway. We count ourselves lucky when we get law enforcement action against endangered mammals,” one of the NGO representatives told me after I repeatedly assured him that I would not identify either him or the NGO.

But even in this tradition-oriented society, tastes in the wildlife market do evolve. Unfortunately, in Indonesia and East Asia, wildlife tastes have been changing all too often toward a more expanded and voracious appetite for wild animals and wildlife products. One of the latest fads in Indonesia is keeping lizards; and young middle- and upper-class Indonesian men on the make now prefer them to birds.

Still, rare and highly-endangered birds, such as lories from Papua, or the Bali starling, continue to be highly desirable and can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. A summer 2012 biological survey revealed that only 31 Bali starlings were left in the Bali Barat National Park, a conservationist involved in the survey told me. Then in July 2012, poachers coated a few trees with glue and captured six of the starlings in the park, eliminating one fifth of the population in the wild. A release of captive-bred birds is planned to boost the population of the species whose survival hangs on a thread as thin as the fishing nets that poachers also use to catch the birds. But without better law enforcement in the park and against buyers throughout the archipelago, and without a dramatic decline in the desirability of the Bali starlings by Javanese bird owners, will the released birds have any chance?

Some of the poachers are desperately poor. In the Moluccas or Papua, they are sometimes paid as little as a bowl of noodles for a day’s hunting, or a pack of cigarettes for a rare bird. But that pack of cigarettes can be enough to extirpate an endangered species. And traders can be shockingly frivolous in how many individual birds or animals they are willing to have killed for the survival of a few that would bring high profits on the international market. Ambonese hunters, mostly very poor, will be paid five dollars for a caught black-capped lori. In order to smuggle out the protected endangered and highly-desired species, traders will then shove the small birds into plastic bottles tied together, throw them into the sea, and fish them out miles away from the island and any possible law enforcement action. With the surviving birds fetching up to thousands of dollars, even a 95% loss of the captured birds (many would suffocate in the plastic bottles) will generate handsome profits. For a fistful of dollars, a species can be rapidly wiped out.

Keeping birds and consuming products from wild animals has a long history in Indonesia. The Dayak communities in Kalimantan, for example, have hunted hornbills for their feathers for centuries. In northern Sulawesi, the Christian community has had a strong taste for bushmeat, with anything that can be hunted often being highly craved for dinner (and very pricey in the Langowan and Tomohon bushmeat markets). One of the greatest delicacies—its consumption being a symbol of status and affluence -- is the black crested macaque, a primate endemic to Sulawesi. Over the past three to four decades, the species has been experiencing an 80% decline. Although deforestation in Sulawesi has eliminated much of the macaques’ habitat, hunting these days actually poses a far greater threat to the species. In addition to its highly-prized meat, its fur is used in traditional dancing to signify bravery; and its skulls decorate masks and costumes.

Protecting the threatened primate has become an environmental priority for conservationists in northern Sulawesi. In an inspired move, an NGO tried to reduce some of the hunting pressures on the macaques by producing artificial skulls looking identical to the real ones, so the replicas would be used for traditional costumes. Another NGO that is currently leading the effort to save the macaques near the Tangkoko Reserve – the Selamatkan Yaki project – has emphasized environmental education to explain to consumers that if they do not reduce the hunting to sustainable levels, all the macaques will be gone and there will be no more pricy meat or and no more fun of hunting the primates, a factor which many hunters identified as an important motivation. (Many of the wildlife traders I interviewed across the archipelago about the critical depletion of the species they were selling and the negative impact on their business if the animals were extirpated in the wild were shockingly unaware and indifferent. They would insist that the birds and animals would always be in the forest and dismiss my suggestions that the species could die out and their trade collapse.) As part of its environmental education and demand-reduction effort, the Selamatkan Yaki project has also tried to involve the local Christian church in the campaign for environmental conservation, as well as to get influential community leaders to declare that the macaque meat, unlike pork, is not crucial for celebrations. But these demand reduction efforts, as imperative as they are, are also very painstaking and slow-going. And for many species, the time is running out at a rapid pace.

In the Booming International Market for Wildlife

The portent of extinction has become all the more threatening as the volume of animals hunted for the local traditional markets is nowadays vastly surpassed by the volume of animals hunted for the booming international market. These international profits often dwarf those in the traditional trade, and international wildlife trading and trafficking are expanding at an exponential rate as a consequence. Many of the hottest wildlife markets are located in China and in East Asia.

Keenly embraced by East Asia’s increasingly affluent middle and upper classes, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) concoctions promising extraordinary curative powers, enhanced longevity, and increased sexual prowess are more popular than ever. So is the consumption of exotic bushmeat. These international wildlife-demand markets have resulted in extraordinary numbers of animals being hunted, sometimes in the millions of specimen per year. The toll on genera such as pangolins, seahorses, turtles, or civets has been huge.[1] Just over a decade ago, for example, Malayan box turtles, then widespread across Indonesia, as well as two endemic Sulawesi land tortoises, fell victim to the Traditional Chinese Medicine craze. So that they would be eventually shredded in blenders into TCM jelly and paste, villagers in Sulawesi would collect them everywhere and sell them for 5000 Indonesian rupiahs (about half a U.S. dollar) per turtle or tortoise. According to a biologist from the Pacific Institute in northern Sulawesi, a subsequent three-month field research project in the area in 2007 found only 2 specimens of what used to be several plentiful species, including some found nowhere else. The turtles and tortoises were literally eaten off the island.

One of the newer fads in the Traditional Chinese Medicine market I encountered during my research in Kalimantan was for hornbill tusks. In Kalimantan, the bills and tusks would fetch 2 million Indonesian rupiahs (roughly USD 200), making the beautiful and enigmatic hornbills a new favorite of local Kalimantan hunters. In the demand markets of China, Singapore, Macau, and Hong Kong, the tusks would bring far more. The presence of well-heeled Chinese coal and timber companies in Kalimantan facilitated the trade, and the companies were often already paying off the Indonesian police, military, navy, and coast guard. Even without extensive bribes, stopping the trade in the tusks would be of far lower priority for Indonesian law enforcement agencies than interdicting artisanal illegal mining, for example, which the big mining companies have an interest in stopping and can financially motivate the law enforcement agencies to take action against.

Policy Responses

Reducing Demand for Wild Animals through Captive Breeding

Sometimes, a legal market in captivity-bred animals can greatly reduce pressures on the natural ecosystems and species. The prohibitions and restrictions on importing wild birds into the United States and European Union, coupled with a legal supply of desirable birds, such as parrots, from captive stocks, greatly reduced poaching for those markets. This legal supply of birds certified to have been bred in captivity have had a palpable impact in Indonesia too, where the bird trade to Europe and the United States dramatically declined, despite the fact that the trade had a centuries-old history, being established essentially at the time when Europeans first arrived in the Moluccas and Papua and saw the local exotic birds.

However, according to the environmental NGOs and conservation biologists I interviewed in Indonesia, bird-breeding facilities in Indonesia itself have not produced similarly positive conservation outcomes, and often serve merely as mechanisms for laundering birds caught in the wild. For a bribe, Indonesian officials often hand out fake licenses for such supposedly captive-breeding programs and the birds. For example, since selling wild-caught lories is illegal, traders often claim that they are captive-bred and produce fake documents to launder the birds.

Alternative Livelihoods for Hunters and Illegal Fishermen

These days hardly all hunters are desperately poor individuals. Nonetheless, even organized crime groups specializing in poaching frequently hire local people living on the edge or inside the forest as trackers, guides, and even shooters. In Indonesia, they can be very destitute individuals struggling to eek out a living and support their families, like those in the Moluccas, who will hunt endangered birds for a bowl of noodles a day. Providing them with an alternative means of livelihood is not only important from the perspective of human rights and human security, but also frequently critical for the success of conservation policies.

Occasionally, alternative livelihoods programs to reduce poaching have scored successes. On the Indonesian island of Seram, for example, twenty poachers of rare parrots were converted (through the work of Profauna, one of Indonesia’s NGOs most determined to fight against the illegal wildlife trade) into rescue-center staff and wildlife guides for tourists. As a result of this alternative livelihoods effort, poaching dramatically fell off. But the success depended on a steady flow of eco-tourists whom the newly-converted poachers could guide. For that, an international counterpart to the conservation effort helped recruit birdwatchers in the United States to travel to Seram. When that international supply of eco-tourists fell off, the income from wildlife guiding for the former poachers declined and the pressure to resume illegal hunting to generate livelihoods intensified once more.

The Seram story is a micro-example of the conditions on which successful alternative livelihoods depend. If poor poachers have an assured income from other sources, they are often willing to abandon the illegal hunting, even though poaching often brings more money. But their income from other sources needs to be steady and assured. The problem with many ecotourism alternative livelihoods efforts is that the income fluctuates greatly and tends to be sporadic and seasonal. Often, for an area to draw a sufficient number of ecotourists to generate income, it needs to contain large mammals that can fairly easily be seen by tourists. Thus, eastern Africa’s savannahs tend to attract many more tourists than rainforest areas.

Moreover, success in bringing an alternative income to potential poachers depends also on the number of potential poachers. It is one thing to employ twenty hunters (like in the Seram example) and quite another thing to bring employment to several thousand people who may reside in or near an ecologically-sensitive area and can become poachers (as well as illegal loggers). The number of jobs generated by ecotourism is often far lower than the existing local needs for employment and the number of illegal poachers, illegal loggers, and pastoralists who encroach on forests. Moreover, whether such ecotourism takes the pressure off poaching is also dependent on whether eco-lodges and ecotourism companies capture the vast majority of profits or whether local communities do in fact get a sufficient cut from the profits.

Note that the above discussion has not taken into consideration whether or not the influx of humans through high-impact ecotourism generates even greater environmental damage than the previous hunting and more profoundly disturbs the entire ecosystem, rather than just particular species.

Income generated by non-ecotourism alternative livelihoods efforts, such as converting hunters into producers of ethnic crafts or honey and other renewable wildlife products, rarely does better than ecotourism alternative livelihoods. Mostly, such alternative economies generate incomes too paltry and sporadic to be attractive to local communities to sufficiently wean them off poaching. Success of such efforts mostly tends to be lower than even the infrequent success in converting illicit crop farmers to farmers of legal crops. In the case of wildlife poaching, legal agricultural production can sometimes reduce hunting – though once again, the question is whether the required land conversion and deforestation will ultimately devastate the entire ecosystem even more. Just as in the case of alternative livelihoods for illicit drugs, success is predicated on well-enforced property rights, the availability of microcredit, good infrastructure, and other structural factors. Crucially, it also depends on well-established value-added chains and assured markets, neither of which are developed easily in remote areas where forests or biodiversity-rich savannahs still exist. Thus on Indonesia’s Flores island, one of the sensitive land and marine areas, there may well be first-rate avocados, but because of a lack of infrastructure and value-added chains, farmers often feed them to pigs instead of exporting them. Flores’s four kinds of mangoes could well be successfully sold in many international markets, but those markets have not yet been developed. And if one day they are, it is critical that they do not generate new deforestation to clear the way for the mango trees, compounding the pressures on already devastated natural forests of the island.

In the Komodo National Park area, for example, inducing local people to switch from dynamite-fishing that decimates the area’s biodiversity-rich marine ecosystems to carving wood crafts for tourists has met with some successes. However, the former fishermen got used to taking wood from the park’s mangroves, replacing one negative ecosystem impact with another. Persuading them to use jackfruit timber instead has become the new imperative. Similarly, seaweed farming in the Komodo area and around Sulawesi has become a popular alternative to fishing, and one that currently has a thriving international market. But careful assessments as to whether the seaweed farming – and of what particular seaweed species and through what precise methods - is fully compatible with coral conservation have yet to be made.

Scuba diving tourism is thriving in the area, bringing with it a variety of positive spillovers for the local economy, such as new restaurants, lodges, and markets. But it is mostly concentrated in Labuan Bajo, not benefiting all parts of Flores equally and many not at all. Moreover, most hotels and dive companies are not owned by local people, with much of the profit leaving for Jakarta or abroad. And only very few of the dive masters are local people.

Improved Law Enforcement

Without alternative livelihoods in place or the ability to change the structure of incentives for the many types of actors who participate in the illegal wildlife trade – as well as without reducing demand for wildlife products -- law enforcement is rarely a sufficient answer. But it is a critical and inescapable component of such efforts.

In Indonesia, enforcement of wildlife regulations has a long way to go. The problem starts with the laws themselves. With few exceptions, such as in the case of kingfisher species which are not allowed to be hunted, Indonesian law does not prohibit the killing and trapping of wild animals in general, only those protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).Unsustainable legal hunting, often poorly monitored to assess its true environmental impact, thus devastates species in Indonesia, with Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies having no interest or means to counter it. Even for wildlife protected by CITES, the Indonesian law sets as the maximum penalty five-year imprisonment or a ten thousand dollar fine. But poachers and wildlife traffickers rarely face law enforcement action, frequently bribing their way out of punishment in Indonesia’s notoriously corrupt courts. If they are sent prison at all, it is usually for a few weeks at most.

Nonetheless, improvements in Indonesia’s wildlife protection enforcement are under way. Many new commitments, efforts, training, and better practices are stimulated by ASEAN’s Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) and its international government and NGO partners. The United States government is actively supporting those efforts; and INTERPOL has also elevated wildlife trafficking on its list of priorities. In turn, the importance of acting against wildlife trafficking has also risen for Indonesian law enforcement agencies, though it still retains a much lower priority than drug trafficking, for example, and hence rewards (such as promotion in rank) are not come easily earned for interdiction of wildlife trafficking. Such increased law enforcement efforts are very important and welcome. Setting quotas for the minimum of wildlife cases Indonesian law enforcement officers must catch is hardly the optimal law enforcement approach but, arguably, it shows at least an increased awareness of the issue.

Yet as is the case with law enforcement against all kinds of illicit trade, sometimes increased law enforcement only makes the markets more hidden. Certainly in Indonesia, sales of more politically and legally-sensitive species, such as monkeys, that are either sold outright illegally or whose trapping generates strong criticism from environmental NGOs, has been driven from public view. Nonetheless, behind closed doors, these species are usually available in many of the country’s big wildlife trading places. When in the huge Jatinegara wildlife market in Jakarta, where supposedly any animal, no matter how endangered and enigmatic can be bought, I tried to pull out my camera, I was met with a great deal of hostility and protests from local sellers and was essentially chased out of the market. One representative of an Indonesian environmental NGO, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me that tiger parts, rhino horns, or alive orangutans and Komodo dragons can all still be obtained in the Jatinegra market and from Indonesia’s other wildlife traders. Illegal pet shops in Jakarta boast that they can deliver any species within a week – and often the transaction is made over the internet.

Nonetheless, there have been some genuine successes in Indonesia’s law enforcement. In Bali, for example, the enforcement of the ban on catching sea turtles has been greatly strengthened. Used in traditional Balinese ceremonies, turtles had been caught at a rate many times surpassing the 1000 specimen catch per year allowed under local regulations. In 1999, 27,000 turtles, for example, were slaughtered. Profauna encouraged zero-catch quotas and pushed for greater law enforcement by the police and other law enforcement agencies, such as the Forestry Ministry. The fact that police units on Bali have a reputation for being less corrupt than elsewhere in Indonesia, and with greater international presence to help in the monitoring, the police confiscation of turtles increased significantly and the illegal catching decreased by 80 percent since.

The intensification of law enforcement interdiction in Indonesia has been critically enabled by the increase in animal rescue shelters. In the past, the Indonesian police often used the small number of available animal shelters as an excuse for not undertaking interdiction raids, claiming that they could not care for the rescued animals. Indeed, according to a very impressive young female Muslim veterinarian in Bali who has supervised some of the rescue shelters, about 95 percent of animals confiscated in wildlife markets or private collections are too sick and damaged to be returned to the wild. With few releases possible, because they might introduce new diseases that could devastate the wild populations, most of the recovered animals will have to be treated at the shelters for the rest of their lives or euthanized. Unfortunately, rehabilitation shelters in Indonesia have depended almost exclusively on foreign funding. Several important international donors have been disappointed with Indonesia’s performance in cracking down on the wildlife trade and have not renewed their donor commitments, leaving some of the shelters struggling to operate.

Challenges in Cracking Down on Illegal Fishing

To some extent, improvements have also been registered in Indonesia’s efforts to combat illegal domestic fishing in protected areas. The Komodo National Park provides an example. Fifteen years ago, dynamite and sodium-cyanide fishing, both extremely destructive to the marine ecosystem, were prevalent and perpetrated by local communities around the park and by fishermen from the eastern parts of Flores as well as other islands, such as Sulawesi and Sumbawa, as already mentioned above. When confronted by local communities trying to prevent the destructive fishing, fishermen from the eastern part of Flores and surrounding islands would often admit that the reason they were coming to fish in the Komodo National Park was the lack of fish available in their home areas, where local stocks were depleted as a result of the destructive fishing.

Pressure from international NGOs and intergovernmental agencies, such as UNESCO, on law enforcement agencies operating in and around the Komodo National Park stimulated better law enforcement action and diminished the dangerous illegal fishing practices. The fact that the Komodo National Park, including its extraordinary marine ecosystem, obtained high international visibility, and hence international pressure for protection, critically helped.

Surprisingly, because the issue can be construed as one of national security and certainly of national sovereignty, Indonesia has been far less capable of cracking down on illegal fishing by foreign fishing fleets, including Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Philippine, that invade its waters. Some of the Indonesian fishermen I interviewed about international illegal fishing in their waters maintained that they were afraid to confront the foreign fleets because the foreign fishing ships were presumed to be armed. They believed that the presence of guns on the fishing ships also deterred action by Indonesia’s coast guard. Some of the fear can perhaps now be offset by the creation of a community patrol “coastal watch” effort run by the Ministry of Fisheries, for which the U.S. government has installed a communications technology that allows the fishermen to report the presence of illegal fishermen in real time and thus enables a heftier law enforcement response.

Most of the interviewed fishermen, however, believed that the lack of robust law enforcement action had to do with large amounts of corruption money sloshing around in the international fishing industry which could easily buy off Indonesia’s naval and coast guard patrols. Church and NGO activists in Labuan Bajo, Flores, for example, recounted how they suspected that local police and navy officials were involved in the smuggling of the endangered Napoleon wrasse (also known as humphead wrasse), the trade in which is prohibited by several countries and whose possession in Indonesia requires special permits from the government. Nonetheless, the species is highly sought after in Taiwan, China, and other East Asian markets. Repeated tipoffs to local Labuan Bajo police and navy units regarding the illegal catching and smuggling of the wrasse fell on deaf ears, with the law enforcement agencies demanding proof from the activists before they would take any kind of law enforcement action against the identified smugglers. The activists thus invited local media to the port where the wrasse smuggling was taking place, and “by accident” spilled one of the boxes transporting the smuggled wrasses, forcing the police to acknowledge in front of flashing cameras that illegal fishing was taking place there. Nonetheless, a visit to the Chinese market in Labuan Bajo in October 2012 revealed Napoleon wrasse on sale. The trade in other exotic fishes, even if not necessarily protected species (CITES only prohibited the trade in some sharks and manta rays in March 2013), was thriving there. Local buyers were eagerly haggling with fishermen over lips from parrotfish, manta ray parts, and sharks fins.

Lessons from Indonesian Anti-Piracy Efforts for More Robust Law Enforcement Action against Illegal Fishing and Wildlife Trafficking

The anti-piracy efforts in the Strait of Malacca and around Indonesia can provide insight into the factors which can stimulate better law enforcement action by Indonesia. Before the frequency of maritime piracy spiked around the Horn of Africa and West Africa, pirate attacks on ships at sea in Strait of Malacca amounted to almost half of the world’s piracy incidents. Out of the more than 250 yearly attacks in the Strait and around Indonesia during the first half of the 2000 decade, the majority originated in Indonesia.[2] Indonesia’s archipelago provided many safe-haven opportunities for pirates, while law enforcement action against them both on land, such as on the Riau islands, and at sea was sporadic and limited at best.

As the frequency of pirate attacks kept growing, it came to present a threat to Singapore’s economy – critically dependent on the safety of its seaborne commerce and accessibility of its port, with more than 50,000 vessels carrying 40% of world’s trade passing through the Strait yearly. Backed by the United States, Singapore pressured Indonesia to take more robust action against the pirates and delivered a variety of financial incentives-- delivering technologies, patrol assets, and ultimately paying for much of the anti-piracy effort Indonesia mounted. Anti-piracy intelligence sharing among Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, previously inhibited by traditional rivalries, also increased, even though many of the proposed “joint” patrols among the three navies really amounted only to “coordinated” patrols. In the latter part of the 2000 decade, piracy in the Strait fell off by about three-fourths – even though the actual number of interdiction operations on the seas remained very small. Just the greater deployment of patrolling assets and importantly actions by Indonesia against the pirates on land created a robust deterrent effect.

The fact that Singapore mounted strong pressure on Indonesia is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that ultimately Singapore had to back up the pressure by extending various modes of assistance to stimulate greater law enforcement action against the pirates. What is more interesting is that in the case of maritime piracy, unlike in the case of its many other large-scale illicit economies, such as illegal logging and mining, Indonesia was able to overcome the corruption that has long plagued its law enforcement apparatus and undermined the interdiction and deterrence efforts. In other words, it was pressure from Singapore, underwritten by material assistance from that city-state, that stimulated Indonesia’s resolve to go after the pirates. But what accounts for Indonesia’s improved capacity to carry out the law enforcement effort?

To a great extent, the answer appears to lie in the low profits and un-institutionalized form of corruption surrounding maritime piracy in the area. Unlike in the case of piracy off the Somalia coast, the profits from piracy around Indonesia were fairly low, with attacks often amounting more to robberies on the seas and in ports, rather than to long-term hostage and cargo seizure with ransom payouts in the millions of dollars. (Indeed, the “pirate” attacks around the Indonesian archipelago that have taken place over the past three to four years remained mostly thefts and robberies when ships are anchored in Indonesia’s ports.) Consequently, the bribes from piracy paid to either Indonesian coast guard or navy officials or to local government officials on land in areas that the pirates used as safe-havens were not very large, nowhere on the scale of the bribes paid by illegal logging or mining companies. Nor have the Indonesian law-enforcement agencies become addicted to the piracy bribes for their institutional budgets, unlike in the case of bribes and problematic profits from natural-resource extraction on which Indonesia’s military and law enforcement agencies have come to depend for sustaining their operating budgets.[3] The political costs Jakarta had to absorb to make law enforcement agencies act against the pirates and the muscle it had to exercise to corral local officials into compliance were far lower with respect to piracy than the political costs would be for Jakarta to enforce compliance with resource-extraction regulations. The number of political and institutional actors with a vested interest in perpetuating piracy (because of the rent payouts it generated) was also much smaller than in illegal logging and mining, and the management problem for Jakarta therefore also much simpler. The resolution of secessionist militancy in Sumatra’s Aceh region, after the 2005 peace deal, is sometimes also put forward as a factor enabling the more robust law enforcement action against the pirates.[4] But there are limitations as to how far this explanation carries, given that most of the pirate attacks did not originate from Aceh and the area was not a prime safe-haven area for the pirates. (The fact that many of the former Free Aceh Movement combatants continue to be unemployed and economically-frustrated could easily make them an easy recruitment pool for pirate businessmen. Other illicit economies, such as marijuana cultivation, have in fact been thriving in the region.)

For combatting wildlife trafficking and illegal logging in Indonesia, the anti-piracy story has two implications. On the positive side, in the case of wildlife trafficking, the vast majority of the conservation actors and Indonesian government officials I interviewed agreed that corruption surrounding wildlife trafficking was not institutionalized. Nor was it believed to generate large off-budget income for the law enforcement institutions, like logging and mining. Tackling individualized corruption, as difficult as it is, is still far simpler than weaning entire institutions of illicit budgets.

On the negative side, the bribery profits from illegal fishing for Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies are considerably higher than those from piracy. For some agencies, such as the coast guard and the navy, the bribes may well constitute corruption payoffs akin to that from mining and logging that go beyond individual bribes. That is bad news for developing more robust law enforcement action.

The barriers to international cooperation against illegal fishing are also far higher than against piracy. Major fishing offenders such as China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam would have to take on their domestic fishing industries -- a high-cost political action they have not been willing to mount, just as Indonesia has not been able to effectively take on its logging industry, for example. Vietnam and Indonesia have announced joint anti-illegal fishing patrols, but whether these will amount to more than window dressing by Vietnam yet remains to be seen.

Beefed up law enforcement action against wildlife trafficking and illegal fishing is critical. Providing effective alternative livelihoods for poor hunters is a policy that enhances human rights and human security as well as greatly facilitates law enforcement. Unfortunately, alternative livelihoods efforts are rarely effective, with auspicious circumstances mostly lacking and structural problems difficult to overcome. Ultimately, there are great limits to what even much more effective law enforcement and much more effective alternative livelihoods can accomplish unless demand for wildlife products around the world, and particularly in East Asia, is rapidly reduced. So far, demand reduction efforts in the region for bushmeat and Traditional Chinese Medicine have registered thinner, even if somewhat improving, results than demand reduction efforts to reduce the consumption of illicit drugs. But time is running out for Indonesia’s magnificent biodiversity –both on land and in the sea.

[1] For details, see Vanda Felbab-Brown, “The Disappearing Act: The Illicit Trade in Wildlife in Asia,” Working Paper No. 6, The Brookings Institution, June 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/6/illegal%20wildlife%20trade%20felbabbrown/06_illegal_wildlife_trade_felbabbrown.

Authors

Hundreds of cages with birds, lizards, bats, and mammals were stacked upon one another, with tens or sometimes even hundreds of specimens crammed into one cage. Several dozen white-eyes (a bird genus) were squeezed into a cage appropriate for one canary. At least a hundred bats were stuffed into another container. In a cage atop this stack, more than fifty green agama dragon lizards, some dead, with their bodies rotting amidst those still alive, were desperately competing on the ceiling of their container for a little of bit space. Two baby civets, on sale for 400,000 Indonesia rupiah each (about USD 40) were shoved into an adjacent box. Like the rest of the unfortunate animals – squirrels, chipmunks, black-naped orioles, drongos, leafbirds, shamas, mynas, partridges, and the highly-prized and highly-threatened lories – the civets had no water and no protection from the full blast of the hot Indonesian sun. Many of the animals would die in this (in)famous Yogyakarta bird market before they were sold to new owners.

Meanwhile, however, the Yogyakarta bird market, like other wildlife markets in Indonesia and East Asia, serves as a perfect incubator for diseases that can mutate and jump among species, such as avian influenza and SARS. Such zoogenic diseases could potentially set off a catastrophic pandemic killing millions of people. The spread of the viruses to domestic animals and people is exacerbated by the trade in roosters for cock-fights, also on sale in the market amidst the wild-caught birds and animals. Even the animals sold before they die in the hands of their traders often do not survive as household pets – typically the fate of species such as woodpeckers, eagles, and owls.

The inhumane treatment of the animals in the many wildlife markets I visited during my research across the Indonesian archipelago was as heart-wrenching as the devastation this unmitigated trade in wild birds and other animals wreaks upon Indonesia’s ecosystems. Orange-headed thrushes and white-crested laughing thrushes, available in cages to eager buyers, are now exceedingly rare in the remnants of Indonesia’s forests, for example.

To reduce the consternation and criticism of international tourists, Yogyakarta’s wildlife market was moved more out of sight – away from its previous location next the frequently visited old royal palace. Nevertheless, enterprising Indonesian young men on motorcycles still bring Western tourists to the market’s new location. A young German woman, with a Lonely Planet Indonesia guidebook tucked in her purse, was eagerly taking photos of the cages, her very short shorts and tanktop as much an affront to Indonesia’s cultural sensitivities in this conservative Muslim city as the appalling conditions of the traded animals are to Westerners. An emblematic introduction to the fusion and confusion of conflicting values in this modernizing yet tradition-bound country?

Hunters and Buyers

In the Indonesian Market

Indonesian buyers and sellers rarely exhibit any qualms about the ecological impacts of the trade and the conditions of the animals. Wildlife trade, particularly in birds, is deeply entrenched in Java’s culture. A Javanese proverb states that every man should have a house, a horse (these days often interpreted as a car, or at least a motorcycle), a wife, a kris (a traditional dagger), and a bird. Because of this strongly-held tradition, at least one third of Javanese households keeps birds, I was told by representatives of a joint international-Indonesian environmental NGO, whom I interviewed on the condition of anonymity. Indeed, strolling through middle-class neighborhoods of Javanese towns reveals house after house with several cages of prinias, bulbuls, orioles, laughing thrushes. Eerily, however, there are precious few birds in the Javanese countryside, most having been caught by traders.

The bird trade is so culturally-ingrained that only some environmental NGOs operating in Indonesia dare oppose it. “Our current priority is to preserve and try to rehabilitate the devastated Indonesian ecosystems. The bird trade is just too difficult; too culturally sensitive. Attempting to stop it could get us shut down or hamper our other operations, such as trying to restore at least a tiny sliver of Indonesia’s lowlands forests. The Indonesian police are not interested in the bird trade anyway. We count ourselves lucky when we get law enforcement action against endangered mammals,” one of the NGO representatives told me after I repeatedly assured him that I would not identify either him or the NGO.

But even in this tradition-oriented society, tastes in the wildlife market do evolve. Unfortunately, in Indonesia and East Asia, wildlife tastes have been changing all too often toward a more expanded and voracious appetite for wild animals and wildlife products. One of the latest fads in Indonesia is keeping lizards; and young middle- and upper-class Indonesian men on the make now prefer them to birds.

Still, rare and highly-endangered birds, such as lories from Papua, or the Bali starling, continue to be highly desirable and can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. A summer 2012 biological survey revealed that only 31 Bali starlings were left in the Bali Barat National Park, a conservationist involved in the survey told me. Then in July 2012, poachers coated a few trees with glue and captured six of the starlings in the park, eliminating one fifth of the population in the wild. A release of captive-bred birds is planned to boost the population of the species whose survival hangs on a thread as thin as the fishing nets that poachers also use to catch the birds. But without better law enforcement in the park and against buyers throughout the archipelago, and without a dramatic decline in the desirability of the Bali starlings by Javanese bird owners, will the released birds have any chance?

Some of the poachers are desperately poor. In the Moluccas or Papua, they are sometimes paid as little as a bowl of noodles for a day’s hunting, or a pack of cigarettes for a rare bird. But that pack of cigarettes can be enough to extirpate an endangered species. And traders can be shockingly frivolous in how many individual birds or animals they are willing to have killed for the survival of a few that would bring high profits on the international market. Ambonese hunters, mostly very poor, will be paid five dollars for a caught black-capped lori. In order to smuggle out the protected endangered and highly-desired species, traders will then shove the small birds into plastic bottles tied together, throw them into the sea, and fish them out miles away from the island and any possible law enforcement action. With the surviving birds fetching up to thousands of dollars, even a 95% loss of the captured birds (many would suffocate in the plastic bottles) will generate handsome profits. For a fistful of dollars, a species can be rapidly wiped out.

Keeping birds and consuming products from wild animals has a long history in Indonesia. The Dayak communities in Kalimantan, for example, have hunted hornbills for their feathers for centuries. In northern Sulawesi, the Christian community has had a strong taste for bushmeat, with anything that can be hunted often being highly craved for dinner (and very pricey in the Langowan and Tomohon bushmeat markets). One of the greatest delicacies—its consumption being a symbol of status and affluence -- is the black crested macaque, a primate endemic to Sulawesi. Over the past three to four decades, the species has been experiencing an 80% decline. Although deforestation in Sulawesi has eliminated much of the macaques’ habitat, hunting these days actually poses a far greater threat to the species. In addition to its highly-prized meat, its fur is used in traditional dancing to signify bravery; and its skulls decorate masks and costumes.

Protecting the threatened primate has become an environmental priority for conservationists in northern Sulawesi. In an inspired move, an NGO tried to reduce some of the hunting pressures on the macaques by producing artificial skulls looking identical to the real ones, so the replicas would be used for traditional costumes. Another NGO that is currently leading the effort to save the macaques near the Tangkoko Reserve – the Selamatkan Yaki project – has emphasized environmental education to explain to consumers that if they do not reduce the hunting to sustainable levels, all the macaques will be gone and there will be no more pricy meat or and no more fun of hunting the primates, a factor which many hunters identified as an important motivation. (Many of the wildlife traders I interviewed across the archipelago about the critical depletion of the species they were selling and the negative impact on their business if the animals were extirpated in the wild were shockingly unaware and indifferent. They would insist that the birds and animals would always be in the forest and dismiss my suggestions that the species could die out and their trade collapse.) As part of its environmental education and demand-reduction effort, the Selamatkan Yaki project has also tried to involve the local Christian church in the campaign for environmental conservation, as well as to get influential community leaders to declare that the macaque meat, unlike pork, is not crucial for celebrations. But these demand reduction efforts, as imperative as they are, are also very painstaking and slow-going. And for many species, the time is running out at a rapid pace.

In the Booming International Market for Wildlife

The portent of extinction has become all the more threatening as the volume of animals hunted for the local traditional markets is nowadays vastly surpassed by the volume of animals hunted for the booming international market. These international profits often dwarf those in the traditional trade, and international wildlife trading and trafficking are expanding at an exponential rate as a consequence. Many of the hottest wildlife markets are located in China and in East Asia.

Keenly embraced by East Asia’s increasingly affluent middle and upper classes, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) concoctions promising extraordinary curative powers, enhanced longevity, and increased sexual prowess are more popular than ever. So is the consumption of exotic bushmeat. These international wildlife-demand markets have resulted in extraordinary numbers of animals being hunted, sometimes in the millions of specimen per year. The toll on genera such as pangolins, seahorses, turtles, or civets has been huge.[1] Just over a decade ago, for example, Malayan box turtles, then widespread across Indonesia, as well as two endemic Sulawesi land tortoises, fell victim to the Traditional Chinese Medicine craze. So that they would be eventually shredded in blenders into TCM jelly and paste, villagers in Sulawesi would collect them everywhere and sell them for 5000 Indonesian rupiahs (about half a U.S. dollar) per turtle or tortoise. According to a biologist from the Pacific Institute in northern Sulawesi, a subsequent three-month field research project in the area in 2007 found only 2 specimens of what used to be several plentiful species, including some found nowhere else. The turtles and tortoises were literally eaten off the island.

One of the newer fads in the Traditional Chinese Medicine market I encountered during my research in Kalimantan was for hornbill tusks. In Kalimantan, the bills and tusks would fetch 2 million Indonesian rupiahs (roughly USD 200), making the beautiful and enigmatic hornbills a new favorite of local Kalimantan hunters. In the demand markets of China, Singapore, Macau, and Hong Kong, the tusks would bring far more. The presence of well-heeled Chinese coal and timber companies in Kalimantan facilitated the trade, and the companies were often already paying off the Indonesian police, military, navy, and coast guard. Even without extensive bribes, stopping the trade in the tusks would be of far lower priority for Indonesian law enforcement agencies than interdicting artisanal illegal mining, for example, which the big mining companies have an interest in stopping and can financially motivate the law enforcement agencies to take action against.

Policy Responses

Reducing Demand for Wild Animals through Captive Breeding

Sometimes, a legal market in captivity-bred animals can greatly reduce pressures on the natural ecosystems and species. The prohibitions and restrictions on importing wild birds into the United States and European Union, coupled with a legal supply of desirable birds, such as parrots, from captive stocks, greatly reduced poaching for those markets. This legal supply of birds certified to have been bred in captivity have had a palpable impact in Indonesia too, where the bird trade to Europe and the United States dramatically declined, despite the fact that the trade had a centuries-old history, being established essentially at the time when Europeans first arrived in the Moluccas and Papua and saw the local exotic birds.

However, according to the environmental NGOs and conservation biologists I interviewed in Indonesia, bird-breeding facilities in Indonesia itself have not produced similarly positive conservation outcomes, and often serve merely as mechanisms for laundering birds caught in the wild. For a bribe, Indonesian officials often hand out fake licenses for such supposedly captive-breeding programs and the birds. For example, since selling wild-caught lories is illegal, traders often claim that they are captive-bred and produce fake documents to launder the birds.

Alternative Livelihoods for Hunters and Illegal Fishermen

These days hardly all hunters are desperately poor individuals. Nonetheless, even organized crime groups specializing in poaching frequently hire local people living on the edge or inside the forest as trackers, guides, and even shooters. In Indonesia, they can be very destitute individuals struggling to eek out a living and support their families, like those in the Moluccas, who will hunt endangered birds for a bowl of noodles a day. Providing them with an alternative means of livelihood is not only important from the perspective of human rights and human security, but also frequently critical for the success of conservation policies.

Occasionally, alternative livelihoods programs to reduce poaching have scored successes. On the Indonesian island of Seram, for example, twenty poachers of rare parrots were converted (through the work of Profauna, one of Indonesia’s NGOs most determined to fight against the illegal wildlife trade) into rescue-center staff and wildlife guides for tourists. As a result of this alternative livelihoods effort, poaching dramatically fell off. But the success depended on a steady flow of eco-tourists whom the newly-converted poachers could guide. For that, an international counterpart to the conservation effort helped recruit birdwatchers in the United States to travel to Seram. When that international supply of eco-tourists fell off, the income from wildlife guiding for the former poachers declined and the pressure to resume illegal hunting to generate livelihoods intensified once more.

The Seram story is a micro-example of the conditions on which successful alternative livelihoods depend. If poor poachers have an assured income from other sources, they are often willing to abandon the illegal hunting, even though poaching often brings more money. But their income from other sources needs to be steady and assured. The problem with many ecotourism alternative livelihoods efforts is that the income fluctuates greatly and tends to be sporadic and seasonal. Often, for an area to draw a sufficient number of ecotourists to generate income, it needs to contain large mammals that can fairly easily be seen by tourists. Thus, eastern Africa’s savannahs tend to attract many more tourists than rainforest areas.

Moreover, success in bringing an alternative income to potential poachers depends also on the number of potential poachers. It is one thing to employ twenty hunters (like in the Seram example) and quite another thing to bring employment to several thousand people who may reside in or near an ecologically-sensitive area and can become poachers (as well as illegal loggers). The number of jobs generated by ecotourism is often far lower than the existing local needs for employment and the number of illegal poachers, illegal loggers, and pastoralists who encroach on forests. Moreover, whether such ecotourism takes the pressure off poaching is also dependent on whether eco-lodges and ecotourism companies capture the vast majority of profits or whether local communities do in fact get a sufficient cut from the profits.

Note that the above discussion has not taken into consideration whether or not the influx of humans through high-impact ecotourism generates even greater environmental damage than the previous hunting and more profoundly disturbs the entire ecosystem, rather than just particular species.

Income generated by non-ecotourism alternative livelihoods efforts, such as converting hunters into producers of ethnic crafts or honey and other renewable wildlife products, rarely does better than ecotourism alternative livelihoods. Mostly, such alternative economies generate incomes too paltry and sporadic to be attractive to local communities to sufficiently wean them off poaching. Success of such efforts mostly tends to be lower than even the infrequent success in converting illicit crop farmers to farmers of legal crops. In the case of wildlife poaching, legal agricultural production can sometimes reduce hunting – though once again, the question is whether the required land conversion and deforestation will ultimately devastate the entire ecosystem even more. Just as in the case of alternative livelihoods for illicit drugs, success is predicated on well-enforced property rights, the availability of microcredit, good infrastructure, and other structural factors. Crucially, it also depends on well-established value-added chains and assured markets, neither of which are developed easily in remote areas where forests or biodiversity-rich savannahs still exist. Thus on Indonesia’s Flores island, one of the sensitive land and marine areas, there may well be first-rate avocados, but because of a lack of infrastructure and value-added chains, farmers often feed them to pigs instead of exporting them. Flores’s four kinds of mangoes could well be successfully sold in many international markets, but those markets have not yet been developed. And if one day they are, it is critical that they do not generate new deforestation to clear the way for the mango trees, compounding the pressures on already devastated natural forests of the island.

In the Komodo National Park area, for example, inducing local people to switch from dynamite-fishing that decimates the area’s biodiversity-rich marine ecosystems to carving wood crafts for tourists has met with some successes. However, the former fishermen got used to taking wood from the park’s mangroves, replacing one negative ecosystem impact with another. Persuading them to use jackfruit timber instead has become the new imperative. Similarly, seaweed farming in the Komodo area and around Sulawesi has become a popular alternative to fishing, and one that currently has a thriving international market. But careful assessments as to whether the seaweed farming – and of what particular seaweed species and through what precise methods - is fully compatible with coral conservation have yet to be made.

Scuba diving tourism is thriving in the area, bringing with it a variety of positive spillovers for the local economy, such as new restaurants, lodges, and markets. But it is mostly concentrated in Labuan Bajo, not benefiting all parts of Flores equally and many not at all. Moreover, most hotels and dive companies are not owned by local people, with much of the profit leaving for Jakarta or abroad. And only very few of the dive masters are local people.

Improved Law Enforcement

Without alternative livelihoods in place or the ability to change the structure of incentives for the many types of actors who participate in the illegal wildlife trade – as well as without reducing demand for wildlife products -- law enforcement is rarely a sufficient answer. But it is a critical and inescapable component of such efforts.

In Indonesia, enforcement of wildlife regulations has a long way to go. The problem starts with the laws themselves. With few exceptions, such as in the case of kingfisher species which are not allowed to be hunted, Indonesian law does not prohibit the killing and trapping of wild animals in general, only those protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).Unsustainable legal hunting, often poorly monitored to assess its true environmental impact, thus devastates species in Indonesia, with Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies having no interest or means to counter it. Even for wildlife protected by CITES, the Indonesian law sets as the maximum penalty five-year imprisonment or a ten thousand dollar fine. But poachers and wildlife traffickers rarely face law enforcement action, frequently bribing their way out of punishment in Indonesia’s notoriously corrupt courts. If they are sent prison at all, it is usually for a few weeks at most.

Nonetheless, improvements in Indonesia’s wildlife protection enforcement are under way. Many new commitments, efforts, training, and better practices are stimulated by ASEAN’s Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) and its international government and NGO partners. The United States government is actively supporting those efforts; and INTERPOL has also elevated wildlife trafficking on its list of priorities. In turn, the importance of acting against wildlife trafficking has also risen for Indonesian law enforcement agencies, though it still retains a much lower priority than drug trafficking, for example, and hence rewards (such as promotion in rank) are not come easily earned for interdiction of wildlife trafficking. Such increased law enforcement efforts are very important and welcome. Setting quotas for the minimum of wildlife cases Indonesian law enforcement officers must catch is hardly the optimal law enforcement approach but, arguably, it shows at least an increased awareness of the issue.

Yet as is the case with law enforcement against all kinds of illicit trade, sometimes increased law enforcement only makes the markets more hidden. Certainly in Indonesia, sales of more politically and legally-sensitive species, such as monkeys, that are either sold outright illegally or whose trapping generates strong criticism from environmental NGOs, has been driven from public view. Nonetheless, behind closed doors, these species are usually available in many of the country’s big wildlife trading places. When in the huge Jatinegara wildlife market in Jakarta, where supposedly any animal, no matter how endangered and enigmatic can be bought, I tried to pull out my camera, I was met with a great deal of hostility and protests from local sellers and was essentially chased out of the market. One representative of an Indonesian environmental NGO, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me that tiger parts, rhino horns, or alive orangutans and Komodo dragons can all still be obtained in the Jatinegra market and from Indonesia’s other wildlife traders. Illegal pet shops in Jakarta boast that they can deliver any species within a week – and often the transaction is made over the internet.

Nonetheless, there have been some genuine successes in Indonesia’s law enforcement. In Bali, for example, the enforcement of the ban on catching sea turtles has been greatly strengthened. Used in traditional Balinese ceremonies, turtles had been caught at a rate many times surpassing the 1000 specimen catch per year allowed under local regulations. In 1999, 27,000 turtles, for example, were slaughtered. Profauna encouraged zero-catch quotas and pushed for greater law enforcement by the police and other law enforcement agencies, such as the Forestry Ministry. The fact that police units on Bali have a reputation for being less corrupt than elsewhere in Indonesia, and with greater international presence to help in the monitoring, the police confiscation of turtles increased significantly and the illegal catching decreased by 80 percent since.

The intensification of law enforcement interdiction in Indonesia has been critically enabled by the increase in animal rescue shelters. In the past, the Indonesian police often used the small number of available animal shelters as an excuse for not undertaking interdiction raids, claiming that they could not care for the rescued animals. Indeed, according to a very impressive young female Muslim veterinarian in Bali who has supervised some of the rescue shelters, about 95 percent of animals confiscated in wildlife markets or private collections are too sick and damaged to be returned to the wild. With few releases possible, because they might introduce new diseases that could devastate the wild populations, most of the recovered animals will have to be treated at the shelters for the rest of their lives or euthanized. Unfortunately, rehabilitation shelters in Indonesia have depended almost exclusively on foreign funding. Several important international donors have been disappointed with Indonesia’s performance in cracking down on the wildlife trade and have not renewed their donor commitments, leaving some of the shelters struggling to operate.

Challenges in Cracking Down on Illegal Fishing

To some extent, improvements have also been registered in Indonesia’s efforts to combat illegal domestic fishing in protected areas. The Komodo National Park provides an example. Fifteen years ago, dynamite and sodium-cyanide fishing, both extremely destructive to the marine ecosystem, were prevalent and perpetrated by local communities around the park and by fishermen from the eastern parts of Flores as well as other islands, such as Sulawesi and Sumbawa, as already mentioned above. When confronted by local communities trying to prevent the destructive fishing, fishermen from the eastern part of Flores and surrounding islands would often admit that the reason they were coming to fish in the Komodo National Park was the lack of fish available in their home areas, where local stocks were depleted as a result of the destructive fishing.

Pressure from international NGOs and intergovernmental agencies, such as UNESCO, on law enforcement agencies operating in and around the Komodo National Park stimulated better law enforcement action and diminished the dangerous illegal fishing practices. The fact that the Komodo National Park, including its extraordinary marine ecosystem, obtained high international visibility, and hence international pressure for protection, critically helped.

Surprisingly, because the issue can be construed as one of national security and certainly of national sovereignty, Indonesia has been far less capable of cracking down on illegal fishing by foreign fishing fleets, including Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Philippine, that invade its waters. Some of the Indonesian fishermen I interviewed about international illegal fishing in their waters maintained that they were afraid to confront the foreign fleets because the foreign fishing ships were presumed to be armed. They believed that the presence of guns on the fishing ships also deterred action by Indonesia’s coast guard. Some of the fear can perhaps now be offset by the creation of a community patrol “coastal watch” effort run by the Ministry of Fisheries, for which the U.S. government has installed a communications technology that allows the fishermen to report the presence of illegal fishermen in real time and thus enables a heftier law enforcement response.

Most of the interviewed fishermen, however, believed that the lack of robust law enforcement action had to do with large amounts of corruption money sloshing around in the international fishing industry which could easily buy off Indonesia’s naval and coast guard patrols. Church and NGO activists in Labuan Bajo, Flores, for example, recounted how they suspected that local police and navy officials were involved in the smuggling of the endangered Napoleon wrasse (also known as humphead wrasse), the trade in which is prohibited by several countries and whose possession in Indonesia requires special permits from the government. Nonetheless, the species is highly sought after in Taiwan, China, and other East Asian markets. Repeated tipoffs to local Labuan Bajo police and navy units regarding the illegal catching and smuggling of the wrasse fell on deaf ears, with the law enforcement agencies demanding proof from the activists before they would take any kind of law enforcement action against the identified smugglers. The activists thus invited local media to the port where the wrasse smuggling was taking place, and “by accident” spilled one of the boxes transporting the smuggled wrasses, forcing the police to acknowledge in front of flashing cameras that illegal fishing was taking place there. Nonetheless, a visit to the Chinese market in Labuan Bajo in October 2012 revealed Napoleon wrasse on sale. The trade in other exotic fishes, even if not necessarily protected species (CITES only prohibited the trade in some sharks and manta rays in March 2013), was thriving there. Local buyers were eagerly haggling with fishermen over lips from parrotfish, manta ray parts, and sharks fins.

Lessons from Indonesian Anti-Piracy Efforts for More Robust Law Enforcement Action against Illegal Fishing and Wildlife Trafficking

The anti-piracy efforts in the Strait of Malacca and around Indonesia can provide insight into the factors which can stimulate better law enforcement action by Indonesia. Before the frequency of maritime piracy spiked around the Horn of Africa and West Africa, pirate attacks on ships at sea in Strait of Malacca amounted to almost half of the world’s piracy incidents. Out of the more than 250 yearly attacks in the Strait and around Indonesia during the first half of the 2000 decade, the majority originated in Indonesia.[2] Indonesia’s archipelago provided many safe-haven opportunities for pirates, while law enforcement action against them both on land, such as on the Riau islands, and at sea was sporadic and limited at best.

As the frequency of pirate attacks kept growing, it came to present a threat to Singapore’s economy – critically dependent on the safety of its seaborne commerce and accessibility of its port, with more than 50,000 vessels carrying 40% of world’s trade passing through the Strait yearly. Backed by the United States, Singapore pressured Indonesia to take more robust action against the pirates and delivered a variety of financial incentives-- delivering technologies, patrol assets, and ultimately paying for much of the anti-piracy effort Indonesia mounted. Anti-piracy intelligence sharing among Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, previously inhibited by traditional rivalries, also increased, even though many of the proposed “joint” patrols among the three navies really amounted only to “coordinated” patrols. In the latter part of the 2000 decade, piracy in the Strait fell off by about three-fourths – even though the actual number of interdiction operations on the seas remained very small. Just the greater deployment of patrolling assets and importantly actions by Indonesia against the pirates on land created a robust deterrent effect.

The fact that Singapore mounted strong pressure on Indonesia is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that ultimately Singapore had to back up the pressure by extending various modes of assistance to stimulate greater law enforcement action against the pirates. What is more interesting is that in the case of maritime piracy, unlike in the case of its many other large-scale illicit economies, such as illegal logging and mining, Indonesia was able to overcome the corruption that has long plagued its law enforcement apparatus and undermined the interdiction and deterrence efforts. In other words, it was pressure from Singapore, underwritten by material assistance from that city-state, that stimulated Indonesia’s resolve to go after the pirates. But what accounts for Indonesia’s improved capacity to carry out the law enforcement effort?

To a great extent, the answer appears to lie in the low profits and un-institutionalized form of corruption surrounding maritime piracy in the area. Unlike in the case of piracy off the Somalia coast, the profits from piracy around Indonesia were fairly low, with attacks often amounting more to robberies on the seas and in ports, rather than to long-term hostage and cargo seizure with ransom payouts in the millions of dollars. (Indeed, the “pirate” attacks around the Indonesian archipelago that have taken place over the past three to four years remained mostly thefts and robberies when ships are anchored in Indonesia’s ports.) Consequently, the bribes from piracy paid to either Indonesian coast guard or navy officials or to local government officials on land in areas that the pirates used as safe-havens were not very large, nowhere on the scale of the bribes paid by illegal logging or mining companies. Nor have the Indonesian law-enforcement agencies become addicted to the piracy bribes for their institutional budgets, unlike in the case of bribes and problematic profits from natural-resource extraction on which Indonesia’s military and law enforcement agencies have come to depend for sustaining their operating budgets.[3] The political costs Jakarta had to absorb to make law enforcement agencies act against the pirates and the muscle it had to exercise to corral local officials into compliance were far lower with respect to piracy than the political costs would be for Jakarta to enforce compliance with resource-extraction regulations. The number of political and institutional actors with a vested interest in perpetuating piracy (because of the rent payouts it generated) was also much smaller than in illegal logging and mining, and the management problem for Jakarta therefore also much simpler. The resolution of secessionist militancy in Sumatra’s Aceh region, after the 2005 peace deal, is sometimes also put forward as a factor enabling the more robust law enforcement action against the pirates.[4] But there are limitations as to how far this explanation carries, given that most of the pirate attacks did not originate from Aceh and the area was not a prime safe-haven area for the pirates. (The fact that many of the former Free Aceh Movement combatants continue to be unemployed and economically-frustrated could easily make them an easy recruitment pool for pirate businessmen. Other illicit economies, such as marijuana cultivation, have in fact been thriving in the region.)

For combatting wildlife trafficking and illegal logging in Indonesia, the anti-piracy story has two implications. On the positive side, in the case of wildlife trafficking, the vast majority of the conservation actors and Indonesian government officials I interviewed agreed that corruption surrounding wildlife trafficking was not institutionalized. Nor was it believed to generate large off-budget income for the law enforcement institutions, like logging and mining. Tackling individualized corruption, as difficult as it is, is still far simpler than weaning entire institutions of illicit budgets.

On the negative side, the bribery profits from illegal fishing for Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies are considerably higher than those from piracy. For some agencies, such as the coast guard and the navy, the bribes may well constitute corruption payoffs akin to that from mining and logging that go beyond individual bribes. That is bad news for developing more robust law enforcement action.

The barriers to international cooperation against illegal fishing are also far higher than against piracy. Major fishing offenders such as China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam would have to take on their domestic fishing industries -- a high-cost political action they have not been willing to mount, just as Indonesia has not been able to effectively take on its logging industry, for example. Vietnam and Indonesia have announced joint anti-illegal fishing patrols, but whether these will amount to more than window dressing by Vietnam yet remains to be seen.

Beefed up law enforcement action against wildlife trafficking and illegal fishing is critical. Providing effective alternative livelihoods for poor hunters is a policy that enhances human rights and human security as well as greatly facilitates law enforcement. Unfortunately, alternative livelihoods efforts are rarely effective, with auspicious circumstances mostly lacking and structural problems difficult to overcome. Ultimately, there are great limits to what even much more effective law enforcement and much more effective alternative livelihoods can accomplish unless demand for wildlife products around the world, and particularly in East Asia, is rapidly reduced. So far, demand reduction efforts in the region for bushmeat and Traditional Chinese Medicine have registered thinner, even if somewhat improving, results than demand reduction efforts to reduce the consumption of illicit drugs. But time is running out for Indonesia’s magnificent biodiversity –both on land and in the sea.

[1] For details, see Vanda Felbab-Brown, “The Disappearing Act: The Illicit Trade in Wildlife in Asia,” Working Paper No. 6, The Brookings Institution, June 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/6/illegal%20wildlife%20trade%20felbabbrown/06_illegal_wildlife_trade_felbabbrown.

Like in a desolate Edward Hopper landscape, the orangutan was clinging to the one last tree that stood next to the river in Kutai National Park in eastern Kalimantan. The joy of seeing this magnificent primate was spoiled by his destroyed habitat. Under normal circumstances, the orangutan would never venture so far out from trees, but here he was in a beyond-degraded and marginal habitat, probably looking for food that he could no longer find inside the forest.

Although once a jewel of biodiversity in Indonesia, teeming with Sumatran rhinoceroses and bantengs (wild Asian cattle species), and long-portrayed as one of the greatest wilderness areas left on the Indonesian side of Borneo, much of Kutai today looks like a devastation zone. Kilometers deep into its boundaries, the park has been stripped of trees. Despite the fact that the park is nominally a protected area, the trees have been logged for their hardwoods as well as to cultivate palms. The park was also badly affected by extensive fires several years ago. The big dipterocarp trees that are the essence of a Southeast Asian rainforest and on which many animal species depend for survival – and the hardwood of which is unfortunately highly valuable – have been all but eliminated in vast tracks of the park. The one last standing dipterocarp a kilometer deep into the forest has become an attraction to show to tourists. As a result, and also because of hunting, few hornbills are left in much of the park: Over the days we spent there, we saw only three species of hornbills: wrinkled, rhinoceros, and Asian pied. Overall, despite hours and hours in the forest, we could saw few other species of birds and mammals, including those that should be common genera in this kind of habitat, such as bulbuls and broadbills. One of the most common bird species in the park, even as deep into the forest as that which several hours of hiking would bring us, seemed to be the blue-eared barbet, a typical forest-edge species whose prevalence well inside the forest indicated that the forest is destroyed and of marginal quality and resembles more a forest edge, rather than a high-quality lowland growth.

We cut the motor of our canoe to watch the orangutan male, but instead of birds and insects, we continued hearing engines and industrial noise from a major coal mine that churned on nonstop for 24 hours a day right on the edge of the forest. Quite possibly, the mine could actually lie at least partly inside what was once national park. Park boundaries in Indonesia are exceedingly easy to redraw to accommodate mining and logging interests and generate revenues for local officials. During interviews with artisanal loggers in villages inside and around Kutai and in other national parks throughout the archipelago, I was told that local government officials and park managers would occasionally clandestinely encourage or at least tacitly tolerate artisanal logging and mining for gold and coal. The initial opening up of the ecosystem and thereafter its degradation would then allow them to apply to national offices in Jakarta to have parts of the park redesignated as unprotected environmentally-degraded land so they could issue permits for industrial-scale logging and mining concessions or African oil palm plantations, which bring great revenues. As efforts to improve local resource management and governance have produced various rankings of how much revenue local officials raise and “invest” in local communities, few regencies (the local administrative unit in Indonesia equivalent to a county) have an incentive to be saddled with forest that cannot be exploited. Whether the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) schemes, discussed below, will succeed in altering the structure of incentives remains to be seen and depends as much on local political-economy structures and power distribution as on their technical and financial feasibility.

The river within which we had canoed was itself clogged by piles of tailings, and spots of gasoline and some industrial runoff floated on the surface with regularity. Two several-hours-long night trips revealed only two buffy fishing owls and three common sandpipers, while no kingfishers or mammals could be sighted. Ornithologist Keith Barnes who has studied birds throughout Africa and Asia commented that until our research trip to Kutai, he had not been on a river in Southeast Asia for more than one hour without seeing at least a squirrel: “There is something seriously wrong with this forest.” For one, vast tracks of the forest are gone, with empty grassland and brambles, and not even secondary forest growth, left in its wake. Indeed, lowland forests throughout Indonesia have been destroyed or are facing tremendous pressures from logging; and even highland forests, such as in Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Halmahera, are increasingly shaved off by logging companies that decide to stomach the logistical expenses of hauling away the timber from steep hills and mountains or by poor artisanal loggers and farmers who desire more land.

Deforestation in Indonesia Going Down?

During the 2000s decade and beyond, deforestation in Indonesia has slowed down, but that is partially because so much forest has already been cut down. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won international accolades for promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia 26% by 2020 through reducing deforestation (even while maintaining a 7% annual growth). Indonesia, one of the world’s largest carbon-emitters, may well come close to succeeding in that goal, but it will be to an important extent because much of its forests have already been commercially logged out, not because conservation efforts have become more robust and effective. Commercially-viable lowland forest in Sumatra is gone, pockets still remain in Kalimantan, and Papua is the hotspot of logging and chainsaw profits.

What is highly disturbing about Indonesia, however, is that the small slivers of forest that are left (often designated as protected areas) continue to be invaded by loggers, poachers, and miners – whether poor artisanal ones who operate illegally or official companies with formal licenses obtained through bribery. Because law enforcement continues to be exceedingly poor and many officers are on the take, even protected areas are far more degraded than similar protected areas elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia or Thailand. These countries too have logged out their forests, but what areas they set aside for conservation, even though small they might be, they tend to protect far better than Indonesia does. Moreover, many of the areas designated as protected in Indonesia, even national parks, are those that had already been commercially logged out and had their biodiversity degraded – the forests of Sulawesi provide a prime example. Setting logged forests aside and protecting them from new encroachment has the potential to greatly boost biodiversity; but whether once species that have become extinct or come close to extinction in a particular area can return and biodiversity be fully restored to its original richness (to that of a primary unlogged forest), no one knows. Many of the tree species and ecosystems they support take several hundred years to grow and reach maturity.

Indonesia’s Law Enforcement and Its Complicity in Illegal Economies and Other Regulatory Problems

Indonesia’s law enforcement and military forces are not only inadequate and under-resourced, they are also deeply complicit in various illicit economies, including illegal logging and mining. The corruption problem goes well beyond many individual officers being in on the take. During the Suharto era, Indonesia’s military had investments in large parts of Indonesia’s economy. Although it was forced to give up many of these past investments, it continues to rely on outside-the-budget revenues for large parts of its income. A decade ago, as much as a third of revenues for the military came off budget, and that dependence and problem has been poorly tackled since and has not fundamentally changed.[1]

Local police officials and military officers not only close their eyes to illegal resource extraction, they at times actively encourage it in order to promote their family businesses. Some representatives of the mill concessions I interviewed in eastern Kalimantan’s business hub Samarinda even claimed that local law enforcement officials would make them accept illegally cut timber for processing or the mills would face raids. “Look, realistically, we have few incentives to comply with regulation,” one of the logging company executives told me. “Getting all the permits and licenses takes a lot of time. You have to pay bribes to local officials and to those in Jakarta. And these days, bribes are complicated and unreliable. If we don’t pay bribes, it will take two years to get a license. And then what? The police or the military will hold up the logs on the river, sometimes for weeks on, until the timbers starts rotting. It’s far simpler just to pay off everyone right away.” He went on to bemoan how corruption used to be far simpler during the Suharto era, with a 10% standard rate for everything. “But these days, the military are angry that the police are getting a cut too, and they’re both jealous of who gets to be paid more. And yes, the coast guard and the navy make money off the coal exports.” Complicity and impunity debilitate regulatory policies. This is particularly so in a deeply corrupt system, such as Indonesia’s, where big violators often hold great political power, including sometimes by being members of Indonesia’s parliament or local administrations, rarely are arrested; and even then can bribe their way out of the law’s punishment.

Strategies to improve natural resource management and protect the environment in the face of seductive vast profits have been undermined in Indonesia not just by poor law enforcement, as key as that is. Efforts to develop effective and equitable regulatory frameworks have also been complicated by overlapping and competing bureaucracies, unclear regulations, poor local management and government capacity, and lack of clear land titles. Poor local administrative capacity and poor local law enforcement capacity are exacerbated by the fact that for a variety of reasons line ministry, law enforcement, and military officials are often rotated out of many postings and areas after a few months. Such short-term assignments guarantee that the officials are in a perpetual catch-up effort to learn local issues, or lead them to simply ignore local contexts. The short-term rotation system is based on the assumption that it limits how deeply involved in local corruption schemes the deployed officials can become. Instead, they often have an incentive to make as much money as fast as possible before they are sent to a less lucrative posting.

Community Ownership as the Solution?

To the extent that law enforcement raids do take place, whether to satisfy Jakarta or silence international criticism, they often target the poorest participants in the illegal economies, such as illegal miners and loggers. Their activities are hardly benevolent; rather, they have significant and highly negative effects on the environment. Overall, their impact may be less detrimental than in the case of large Indonesian or multinational companies, but they often significantly disturb and destroy fragile ecosystems, such as highland forests where commercial logging is unviable and which thus become some of the last strands of forest standing. But the reality also is that the basic livelihoods of artisanal loggers and miners can be profoundly dependent on these illicit economies, and their human security entwined with their participation in illegality. Lacking access to legal livelihoods, microcredit, and titles, they are also far less able to pay license fees and bribes, as well as having little capacity to bribe their way out of being arrested. The sentence of several months or even years in prison may deter some from further illegal logging. But some of the villagers whom I interviewed had been imprisoned for illegal logging and stated that they merely switched to poaching. They could not make ends meet legally and faced lesser sanctions for poaching than for illegal mining and logging. Among the variety of illicit economic activities surrounding resource extraction, Indonesia’s law enforcement frequently makes the most effort to crack down on artisanal illegal mining because large mining companies have an interest in keeping the artisanal loggers out of their way.[2]

Democratization and power decentralization in Indonesia were expected to better align the behavior of local officials with the interests of local communities, strengthening local communities’ rights and improving environmental protection. That promise has not often materialized for a variety of reasons: First, powerful interest groups and large businesses, often linked to local politicians, tend to be far more effective at lobbying than local civil society groups. Indeed, many of the NGOs working in the community rights or natural resource sectors I interviewed throughout Indonesia felt impotent; along with journalists, they would expose violations of laws and regulations, but no one would be punished and behavior would not change. Second, feeling they have poor choices and that most politicians are corrupt anyway, many voters are easily seduced by cheap handouts from politicians before elections. Rather than poorly- performing government officials being voted out of power, they are often reelected or arrange for their family members to be elected. Throughout Indonesia, resource-baron local dynasties have been emerging. Third, decentralization has greatly empowered local officials in Indonesia – in fact, often to the extent that they believe they can get away with a lot in violating edicts from Jakarta and disobeying the national government. Conflicting local and national regulations only further permit escaping desirable regulations.[3]

Furthermore, it is not always clear that local communities are fundamentally opposed to economic exploitation that destroys the local environment. Occasionally, they will resist and protect their land from logging or mining and even do so effectively – such as in the famous case of the Wehea Forest in Kalimantan. The level of social cohesion plays a critical role. In tightly-knit indigenous communities spiritually-linked to a forest, as in the Wehea case, the capacity to resist the lure of short-term profits can well be strong and effective resistance action can be organized. But many communities in Indonesia’s frontier areas such as Kalimantan are transmigrasi migrants. They do not have attachments to the area, they do not necessarily plan to stay there for the long term, they do not know their neighbors in the shack next door, and they often do not have land titles. They have moved to the logging and mining areas precisely to make money. They are in it for the quick buck, and their horizons tend to be very short, even shorter than the horizons of many local government officials. When I questioned the officials about the sustainability of their primary commodity exploitation-led growth, many would delightedly reply that they had coal supplies for twenty years – “a very long time.” And even communities with more established roots in an area but that are struggling with marginal livelihoods are easily tempted to sell their land to big companies for exploitation.

Many resource-extraction companies have also learned that they can get away with unsustainable strategies, not only politically and legally, but also economically. For many years, Indonesia’s timber and mill industry was eating its own tail, slashing the forests at a rate that was unsustainable while the industry was becoming more and more bloated. But instead of suffering the painful effects of having to downsize their operations as Indonesia’s forest shrank and the Indonesian national government became more interested in limiting deforestation (if only to get its hands on the REDD+ money), many companies were able to diversify or altogether switch into African oil palm cultivation or mining.

International Mechanisms to Foster Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability I: REDD+

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and, more broadly, approaches such as paying-for-ecosystem-services (PES) schemes are based on the idea that if the economic structure of incentives pushes toward environmental degradation because natural ecosystems are not economically valued, one can change the structure of incentives by pricing environmental services, such as carbon capture. These financial transfers pay for an undesirable – such as, environmentally-destructive – economic activity like logging or mining not to take place. Western governments who care about tropical forests not being destroyed or Western companies that need to offset their carbon emissions pay for forests elsewhere not to be cut down and carbon emissions thus not to be released. In the best of outcomes, such schemes will reduce carbon emissions and preserve forests and biodiversity. After several years of tough and protracted negotiations, Indonesia and Norway agreed in December 2012 on such a REDD+ scheme which pays for a protection area to be established abutting the Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, to create an important buffer zone around it. Investors in the Rimba Raya forest include Russia’s giant gas producer Gazprom and a large German financial institution Allianz. The project was originally supposed to start in 2010, but then stalled as the Indonesian government proposed to cut the amount of land devoted to the conservation area because an African oil palm plantation company had overlapping concessions that it was not interested in relinquishing.

REDD+ mechanisms were at the center of the stalled UN climate change negotiations in the latest November 2012 Doha round. And just like the overall climate change negotiations, they too are mired in international political disagreements. The procedure on which to base reference emission levels, i.e., the baseline from which the level of carbon emission that would take place in the absence of REDD+ is counted, is developed; but key emitters, such as Brazil, have refused to submit to international verification and monitoring procedures. In a country with deep corruption and pervasive regulation evasion such as Indonesia, credible external monitoring will be key for making REDD+ and other PES efforts effective.

A second major problem is that the lack of emissions reductions commitments from the United States, China, India, Canada, and Russia raises doubts about how and whether funding for REDD+ will be generated and at what levels. China and India are loath to commit to any emission reductions until the United States makes a move, and perhaps not even then. Nor has it been agreed as to how much of the burden and responsibility middle-income countries like Brazil and Indonesia need to share. Indonesian officials I interviewed often expressed a desire that the REDD+ is used to pay for law enforcement in the national parks and other protected areas, for example; but Indonesia is not so poor that it requires international payoffs to pay its park rangers better. Anyway, the problem often lies as much with actors outside the national park as with the rangers themselves.

And here lies one of the potential difficulties with REDD+. The payoff goes to either the national government or a local government. But surrounding the two and between the two, there are often complex webs of powerful vested economic actors. Even equitable and proportional transfers between the national government and local governments do not guarantee that local government officials will develop the muscle and wherewithal to resist corruption and coercion from powerful economic groups, particularly if those economic groups are the military and police, like in Indonesia. Nor will the money necessarily make its way into the hands of the artisanal loggers and miners. In other words, the domestic payoff transfer and internal distribution of the money and transferred resources will affect the REDD+ effectiveness as much as their international component.

Such problems with government compensation to local forest owners for preserving natural forests have been experienced even outside of the carbon schemes. If monitoring and law enforcement is poor and the local community places little intrinsic value on forest and biodiversity preservation, local communities will often collect the money and log anyway, or in other cases face invasion by logging companies from outside the community. Similarly, if payments are set too much below the value of logging the forest, even compensated owners can be tempted to participate in illegal logging while collecting no-cutting rents.[4] And making sure that the money reaches the forest-dependent communities and is not usurped by corrupt powerbrokers is often a challenge.

Another aspect of REDD+ that could have important effects is developing local capacities to better manage forests. But those better sustainable practices will once again run into local economic interests that either need to be bought via the REDD+ transfers or coerced by law enforcement to comply with regulations. What the REDD+ initiatives have already accomplished in Indonesia is to force officials in the Forestry Ministry – a notoriously corrupt institution which regards its task as making as much money out of forests as possible, rather than preserving forests and biodiversityn – to conduct much better assessments of existing forests and even publish that data. Previous self-monitoring and data collection on deforestation has been rather unreliable in Indonesia.

Critically, the price structure of the payoff schemes will be a significant determinant of their effectiveness not only for capturing carbon, but also of preserving the world’s biodiversity.[5] Surprisingly, a certain price structure could have a negative effect on the preservation of natural forests, and the failure to incorporate biodiversity considerations in forest management designs could be compounded by emerging carbon-for-forest payoff schemes. In some countries and under some circumstances, where there is strong government commitment, successful cooptation of key logging industry stakeholders, and effective law enforcement, such financial transfers can halt deforestation or even expand existing forest cover.[6] But for that to be likely, the compensation payments need to be far greater for preserving natural, and especially primary, forests than for capturing carbon by degraded forests or replanted forests or timber plantations. And these differentials – with by far the most compensation going for primary forests, smaller amounts for secondary forests, and the least for non-native monoculture plantations – need to be sufficiently great to steer government decisions toward keeping forests intact. Without such a price structure in place, with any tree accorded an equal or similar carbon-capture value, governments could be tempted to maximize profits by intensely logging their forests first and then signing up for carbon offsets for halting further deforestation, including from forests that are no longer viable for commercial logging or through biodiversity-poor reforestation and plantations. Even if the logged forest regenerates timber through replanting or natural recovery, it often cannot do so in a manner that will restore its original biodiversity. Without a far greater unit price for carbon captured by intact natural forests rather than by forest plantations and other reforested areas, the carbon schemes thus encourage the preservation of any forests – including monocultures – rather than native primary forests.[7]

International Mechanisms to Foster Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability II: Green and Other Certification

Since the 1990s, certification labeling of the legality and environmental sustainability of harvested timber or African palm oil or of the absence of conflict in the extraction of minerals has emerged as a key mechanism to suppress undesirable behavior associated with economies that cannot be fully prohibited. Certification is supposed to mitigate inherent harms and negative externalities, such as human rights violations, social strife and violent conflict, and environmental destruction. To combat illegal logging, timber certification is meant to designate that the logged and traded timber has been sourced and transported in a legal or environmentally-sound way and that illegal timber has not been mixed in with the legal timber. Ideally, such certification examines and approves the entire custody chain; the traded timber would be certified from the moment it is carefully, legally, and sustainably selected for cutting in the forest to the moment a customer buys a piece of furniture in a Western furniture store. Any gap in controls in the custody chain increases the chance that illegal timber enters the trade and is effectively laundered.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC, an independent, international NGO) certification, which tracks timber from forest to the shelf, is often considered the current gold standard of certification labels for timber. However, by the end of the 2000s, the FSC still certified only approximately 220 million acres, of which 110 million are in North America, while there are 10 billion acres of forested land on Earth.[8] Less than 2% of tropical timber was covered by FSC certification.[9] Getting certified is expensive, costing about U.S. $50,000 per concession, and customers are not always eager to absorb the higher costs.

Given the size of the trade and the complexity of certification – as wood changes many hands along trade routes and is processed into many, often minute pieces, over extensive periods of time – the reliability of the process is frequently problematic, with many opportunities for fake certificates, falsification, or timber laundering along the way. The more timber subject to certification, the more challenging it will be to maintain quality and reliable certification. When I asked a logging company representative in Samarinda about whether they were concerned about failing to obtain green certification and whether they altered their practice as a result of increasing desire for such certification in Western markets, he just laughed: “For us, it’s just another bribery item. We pay for the inspectors. And anyway, they go out for two days out of a year – how much can they see?”

Beyond the sheer volume and the previously discussed challenges of law enforcement intensity, fake documentation, and the amount of time it takes to check a sufficient amount of timber to discourage laundering and smuggling, certification schemes are also plagued by other problems: The most important one is that timber may be certified as legal, but may not be harvested sustainably and in an environmentally sensitive way. Some of the legality verification is very limited, confirming only that timber originated in a particular concession area and that the company had the necessary permits. Other legality certification can involve more rigorous evidence of compliance with harvesting regulations and other operational matters. [10] Even then sustainability may not necessarily be a part of the certification evaluation. Since most legislation mandating certification of wood and wood products, including the expanded U.S. Lacey Act and the European Union’s Timber Regulation due diligence requirements, centers on its legality, as opposed to its sustainability, suppliers have concentrated on precisely assuring timber’s legality but not necessarily sustainability. Moreover, getting a certification for sustainability takes considerably longer and is far more expensive than the legality certification.

Certification problems often start with forest management plans. Both the design and implementation of forest management are often pervaded by serious problems, even though the mere existence of such a plan can qualify the logged timber for certification. Not all forest management plans ensure sustainability and minimal environmental damage, including measures to protect biodiversity. Often forest engineers, large numbers of whom are required to design programs for all the logging operations, are incompetent and corrupt. Moreover, since natural forest regeneration often takes decades in the tropics, there is not any easy way at present to see whether the management programs are effective, and to correct policy if they are not. Thus certification does not always involve all three components: legality, timber sustainability, and biodiversity protection. Certificates are issued only for one or two components of desirable practices, with law enforcement officials and customers having no idea what exactly is being certified and whether the certified timber in fact reflects optimal practices.

In addition, consumer preferences and regulatory requirements for certified wood have given birth to some certification schemes of dubious quality. Many of these certification labels represent simple cases of “greenwashing,” i.e., illegal and unsustainable wood being certified as legal and sustainable. In other cases, major retailers – even in the United States and Western Europe where customers are overall greener and the regulatory oversight greater – have appropriated and advertized green labels, including that of FSC, without ever being certified.[11] At other times, timber and wood product suppliers have obtained FSC’s chain-of-custody certification indicating that they have adequate capacity to check their supply chains without actually handling any FSC certified timber.[12] Extensive unreliability of certification can whitewash consumer conscience and encourage greater, and undesirable, consumer demand. Large numbers of certification schemes also make law enforcement more difficult. Watching the watchdogs, or in this case certificate issuers, and establishing lists of reliable certifiers, is essential for certification to reduce illegal logging.

Critically compounding the limitations of certification is the fact that some of the most important and emerging markets, such as India and China, fundamentally do not care about corporate social responsibility or mitigating the multiple harms that various economic activities can generate. Mining company representatives I interviewed in Sulawesi, Kalimantan, and Sumatra all said how they love to sell coal to India. “The Indian companies just don’t care about anything,” the representative in Kalimantan opined. “Not any environmental issues, social conflict, nothing. It’s a pleasure dealing with them. They even don’t care about the quality of the coal. They just want more and more of it.” Clearly, to improve the effectiveness of certification, it is necessary to create certification inspectors who are fully independent and not paid by the business firms or governments seeking the particular legal, environmental, or social certification. It is also necessary to fundamentally change attitudes toward corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability in emerging markets. Not surprisingly, many Asian companies and multinationals tend to behave better at home than abroad, like in Indonesia. Indonesian logging and mining companies are hardly, however, paragons of virtue.

While critical, a regulatory framework only partially determines the effectiveness of policies. Local institutional and cultural contexts matter a great deal and can facilitate or render ineffective regulatory frameworks. The overall level of corruption and the quality of law enforcement and rule of law matter as much as the regulatory design itself. And in Indonesia they have a long way to go to improve.

As we were leaving Kutai, we stopped at a roadside shack to take some photographs of the destroyed forest. A local Dayak woman was selling various wares. While trying to talk us into buying parts of animals her father killed in the park, such as hornbill feathers, she told us that she frequently sees orangutans cross the paved highway. On either side of the road, there was little forest left – just palms as far as the eye could see. It was not clear to us where the orangutans would be going or why: Perhaps there is so little food left in the forest that even here, in a national park, they are forced to eat the insides of the African oil palms, a foraging coping mechanism that frequently puts them in conflict with people and gets them killed. While I was looking at the road and the destroyed forest, a paraphrase of the famous line from Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptical novel The Roadran though my head: Borrowed time and borrowed world and whose eyes with which to sorrow it?

[2] See also Samuel Spiegel, “Governance Institutions, Resource Rights Regimes, and the Informal Mining Sector: Regulatory Complexities in Indonesia,” World Development, 40(1), 2012: 189-205; and Gavin Hilson, “What Is Wrong with the Global Support Facility for Small-scale Mining?” Progress in Development Studies, (7)3, 2007: 235-249.

[3] For how decentralization has become excessive and distortive, see International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Defying the State,” August 30, 2012, http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/b138-indonesia-defying-the-state.pdf.

[4] For examples of such compensation policies and their shortcoming in particularly institutional and regulatory settings in China, see, for example, Forest Trends (2006): 20. For an effective, but expensive compensation scheme that increased the amount of land protected from certain kinds of environmentally-damaging land in Colorado, the United States, from just under 350,000 acres in 2000 to almost one million in 2005, see “Mountains for the Centuries,” The Economist, 382(8514): 35.

[5] For other challenges for effectively implementing REDD+, see Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Not as Easy as Falling off a Log: The Illegal Timber Trade in the Asia-Pacific Region and Possible Mitigation Strategies,” Brookings Foreign Policy Working Paper No. 5, Brookings Institution, March 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/3/illegal%20logging%20felbabbrown/03_illegal_logging_felbabbrown.

[7] For how carbon offsets support such undesirable behavior in Papua New Guinea, for example, see Colin Filer, Rodney J. Keenan, Bryant J. Allen and John R. Mcalpine, “Deforestation and forest degradation in Papua New Guinea,” Annals of Forest Science, 66 (8), December 2009: 813-25.

[8] Pervaze A. Sheikh, Illegal Logging: Background and Issues, Congressional Research Service, June 9, 2008: 5. Even the FSC is not infallible, as was revealed with respect to illegal and unsustainable timber from Laos the FSC nonetheless certified. See, for example, World Rainforest Movement, “Laos: FSC Certified Timber Is Illegal,” http://www.illegal-logging.info/item_single.php?it_id=1683&it=news; and Wright and Carlton.

[11] See, for example, Environmental Investigative Agency, Behind the Veneer: How Indonesia’s Last Rainforests Are Being Felled for Flooring, 2006, http://www.eia-international.org/cgi/reports/reports.cgi?t=template&a=117.

Authors

Like in a desolate Edward Hopper landscape, the orangutan was clinging to the one last tree that stood next to the river in Kutai National Park in eastern Kalimantan. The joy of seeing this magnificent primate was spoiled by his destroyed habitat. Under normal circumstances, the orangutan would never venture so far out from trees, but here he was in a beyond-degraded and marginal habitat, probably looking for food that he could no longer find inside the forest.

Although once a jewel of biodiversity in Indonesia, teeming with Sumatran rhinoceroses and bantengs (wild Asian cattle species), and long-portrayed as one of the greatest wilderness areas left on the Indonesian side of Borneo, much of Kutai today looks like a devastation zone. Kilometers deep into its boundaries, the park has been stripped of trees. Despite the fact that the park is nominally a protected area, the trees have been logged for their hardwoods as well as to cultivate palms. The park was also badly affected by extensive fires several years ago. The big dipterocarp trees that are the essence of a Southeast Asian rainforest and on which many animal species depend for survival – and the hardwood of which is unfortunately highly valuable – have been all but eliminated in vast tracks of the park. The one last standing dipterocarp a kilometer deep into the forest has become an attraction to show to tourists. As a result, and also because of hunting, few hornbills are left in much of the park: Over the days we spent there, we saw only three species of hornbills: wrinkled, rhinoceros, and Asian pied. Overall, despite hours and hours in the forest, we could saw few other species of birds and mammals, including those that should be common genera in this kind of habitat, such as bulbuls and broadbills. One of the most common bird species in the park, even as deep into the forest as that which several hours of hiking would bring us, seemed to be the blue-eared barbet, a typical forest-edge species whose prevalence well inside the forest indicated that the forest is destroyed and of marginal quality and resembles more a forest edge, rather than a high-quality lowland growth.

We cut the motor of our canoe to watch the orangutan male, but instead of birds and insects, we continued hearing engines and industrial noise from a major coal mine that churned on nonstop for 24 hours a day right on the edge of the forest. Quite possibly, the mine could actually lie at least partly inside what was once national park. Park boundaries in Indonesia are exceedingly easy to redraw to accommodate mining and logging interests and generate revenues for local officials. During interviews with artisanal loggers in villages inside and around Kutai and in other national parks throughout the archipelago, I was told that local government officials and park managers would occasionally clandestinely encourage or at least tacitly tolerate artisanal logging and mining for gold and coal. The initial opening up of the ecosystem and thereafter its degradation would then allow them to apply to national offices in Jakarta to have parts of the park redesignated as unprotected environmentally-degraded land so they could issue permits for industrial-scale logging and mining concessions or African oil palm plantations, which bring great revenues. As efforts to improve local resource management and governance have produced various rankings of how much revenue local officials raise and “invest” in local communities, few regencies (the local administrative unit in Indonesia equivalent to a county) have an incentive to be saddled with forest that cannot be exploited. Whether the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) schemes, discussed below, will succeed in altering the structure of incentives remains to be seen and depends as much on local political-economy structures and power distribution as on their technical and financial feasibility.

The river within which we had canoed was itself clogged by piles of tailings, and spots of gasoline and some industrial runoff floated on the surface with regularity. Two several-hours-long night trips revealed only two buffy fishing owls and three common sandpipers, while no kingfishers or mammals could be sighted. Ornithologist Keith Barnes who has studied birds throughout Africa and Asia commented that until our research trip to Kutai, he had not been on a river in Southeast Asia for more than one hour without seeing at least a squirrel: “There is something seriously wrong with this forest.” For one, vast tracks of the forest are gone, with empty grassland and brambles, and not even secondary forest growth, left in its wake. Indeed, lowland forests throughout Indonesia have been destroyed or are facing tremendous pressures from logging; and even highland forests, such as in Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Halmahera, are increasingly shaved off by logging companies that decide to stomach the logistical expenses of hauling away the timber from steep hills and mountains or by poor artisanal loggers and farmers who desire more land.

Deforestation in Indonesia Going Down?

During the 2000s decade and beyond, deforestation in Indonesia has slowed down, but that is partially because so much forest has already been cut down. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won international accolades for promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia 26% by 2020 through reducing deforestation (even while maintaining a 7% annual growth). Indonesia, one of the world’s largest carbon-emitters, may well come close to succeeding in that goal, but it will be to an important extent because much of its forests have already been commercially logged out, not because conservation efforts have become more robust and effective. Commercially-viable lowland forest in Sumatra is gone, pockets still remain in Kalimantan, and Papua is the hotspot of logging and chainsaw profits.

What is highly disturbing about Indonesia, however, is that the small slivers of forest that are left (often designated as protected areas) continue to be invaded by loggers, poachers, and miners – whether poor artisanal ones who operate illegally or official companies with formal licenses obtained through bribery. Because law enforcement continues to be exceedingly poor and many officers are on the take, even protected areas are far more degraded than similar protected areas elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia or Thailand. These countries too have logged out their forests, but what areas they set aside for conservation, even though small they might be, they tend to protect far better than Indonesia does. Moreover, many of the areas designated as protected in Indonesia, even national parks, are those that had already been commercially logged out and had their biodiversity degraded – the forests of Sulawesi provide a prime example. Setting logged forests aside and protecting them from new encroachment has the potential to greatly boost biodiversity; but whether once species that have become extinct or come close to extinction in a particular area can return and biodiversity be fully restored to its original richness (to that of a primary unlogged forest), no one knows. Many of the tree species and ecosystems they support take several hundred years to grow and reach maturity.

Indonesia’s Law Enforcement and Its Complicity in Illegal Economies and Other Regulatory Problems

Indonesia’s law enforcement and military forces are not only inadequate and under-resourced, they are also deeply complicit in various illicit economies, including illegal logging and mining. The corruption problem goes well beyond many individual officers being in on the take. During the Suharto era, Indonesia’s military had investments in large parts of Indonesia’s economy. Although it was forced to give up many of these past investments, it continues to rely on outside-the-budget revenues for large parts of its income. A decade ago, as much as a third of revenues for the military came off budget, and that dependence and problem has been poorly tackled since and has not fundamentally changed.[1]

Local police officials and military officers not only close their eyes to illegal resource extraction, they at times actively encourage it in order to promote their family businesses. Some representatives of the mill concessions I interviewed in eastern Kalimantan’s business hub Samarinda even claimed that local law enforcement officials would make them accept illegally cut timber for processing or the mills would face raids. “Look, realistically, we have few incentives to comply with regulation,” one of the logging company executives told me. “Getting all the permits and licenses takes a lot of time. You have to pay bribes to local officials and to those in Jakarta. And these days, bribes are complicated and unreliable. If we don’t pay bribes, it will take two years to get a license. And then what? The police or the military will hold up the logs on the river, sometimes for weeks on, until the timbers starts rotting. It’s far simpler just to pay off everyone right away.” He went on to bemoan how corruption used to be far simpler during the Suharto era, with a 10% standard rate for everything. “But these days, the military are angry that the police are getting a cut too, and they’re both jealous of who gets to be paid more. And yes, the coast guard and the navy make money off the coal exports.” Complicity and impunity debilitate regulatory policies. This is particularly so in a deeply corrupt system, such as Indonesia’s, where big violators often hold great political power, including sometimes by being members of Indonesia’s parliament or local administrations, rarely are arrested; and even then can bribe their way out of the law’s punishment.

Strategies to improve natural resource management and protect the environment in the face of seductive vast profits have been undermined in Indonesia not just by poor law enforcement, as key as that is. Efforts to develop effective and equitable regulatory frameworks have also been complicated by overlapping and competing bureaucracies, unclear regulations, poor local management and government capacity, and lack of clear land titles. Poor local administrative capacity and poor local law enforcement capacity are exacerbated by the fact that for a variety of reasons line ministry, law enforcement, and military officials are often rotated out of many postings and areas after a few months. Such short-term assignments guarantee that the officials are in a perpetual catch-up effort to learn local issues, or lead them to simply ignore local contexts. The short-term rotation system is based on the assumption that it limits how deeply involved in local corruption schemes the deployed officials can become. Instead, they often have an incentive to make as much money as fast as possible before they are sent to a less lucrative posting.

Community Ownership as the Solution?

To the extent that law enforcement raids do take place, whether to satisfy Jakarta or silence international criticism, they often target the poorest participants in the illegal economies, such as illegal miners and loggers. Their activities are hardly benevolent; rather, they have significant and highly negative effects on the environment. Overall, their impact may be less detrimental than in the case of large Indonesian or multinational companies, but they often significantly disturb and destroy fragile ecosystems, such as highland forests where commercial logging is unviable and which thus become some of the last strands of forest standing. But the reality also is that the basic livelihoods of artisanal loggers and miners can be profoundly dependent on these illicit economies, and their human security entwined with their participation in illegality. Lacking access to legal livelihoods, microcredit, and titles, they are also far less able to pay license fees and bribes, as well as having little capacity to bribe their way out of being arrested. The sentence of several months or even years in prison may deter some from further illegal logging. But some of the villagers whom I interviewed had been imprisoned for illegal logging and stated that they merely switched to poaching. They could not make ends meet legally and faced lesser sanctions for poaching than for illegal mining and logging. Among the variety of illicit economic activities surrounding resource extraction, Indonesia’s law enforcement frequently makes the most effort to crack down on artisanal illegal mining because large mining companies have an interest in keeping the artisanal loggers out of their way.[2]

Democratization and power decentralization in Indonesia were expected to better align the behavior of local officials with the interests of local communities, strengthening local communities’ rights and improving environmental protection. That promise has not often materialized for a variety of reasons: First, powerful interest groups and large businesses, often linked to local politicians, tend to be far more effective at lobbying than local civil society groups. Indeed, many of the NGOs working in the community rights or natural resource sectors I interviewed throughout Indonesia felt impotent; along with journalists, they would expose violations of laws and regulations, but no one would be punished and behavior would not change. Second, feeling they have poor choices and that most politicians are corrupt anyway, many voters are easily seduced by cheap handouts from politicians before elections. Rather than poorly- performing government officials being voted out of power, they are often reelected or arrange for their family members to be elected. Throughout Indonesia, resource-baron local dynasties have been emerging. Third, decentralization has greatly empowered local officials in Indonesia – in fact, often to the extent that they believe they can get away with a lot in violating edicts from Jakarta and disobeying the national government. Conflicting local and national regulations only further permit escaping desirable regulations.[3]

Furthermore, it is not always clear that local communities are fundamentally opposed to economic exploitation that destroys the local environment. Occasionally, they will resist and protect their land from logging or mining and even do so effectively – such as in the famous case of the Wehea Forest in Kalimantan. The level of social cohesion plays a critical role. In tightly-knit indigenous communities spiritually-linked to a forest, as in the Wehea case, the capacity to resist the lure of short-term profits can well be strong and effective resistance action can be organized. But many communities in Indonesia’s frontier areas such as Kalimantan are transmigrasi migrants. They do not have attachments to the area, they do not necessarily plan to stay there for the long term, they do not know their neighbors in the shack next door, and they often do not have land titles. They have moved to the logging and mining areas precisely to make money. They are in it for the quick buck, and their horizons tend to be very short, even shorter than the horizons of many local government officials. When I questioned the officials about the sustainability of their primary commodity exploitation-led growth, many would delightedly reply that they had coal supplies for twenty years – “a very long time.” And even communities with more established roots in an area but that are struggling with marginal livelihoods are easily tempted to sell their land to big companies for exploitation.

Many resource-extraction companies have also learned that they can get away with unsustainable strategies, not only politically and legally, but also economically. For many years, Indonesia’s timber and mill industry was eating its own tail, slashing the forests at a rate that was unsustainable while the industry was becoming more and more bloated. But instead of suffering the painful effects of having to downsize their operations as Indonesia’s forest shrank and the Indonesian national government became more interested in limiting deforestation (if only to get its hands on the REDD+ money), many companies were able to diversify or altogether switch into African oil palm cultivation or mining.

International Mechanisms to Foster Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability I: REDD+

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and, more broadly, approaches such as paying-for-ecosystem-services (PES) schemes are based on the idea that if the economic structure of incentives pushes toward environmental degradation because natural ecosystems are not economically valued, one can change the structure of incentives by pricing environmental services, such as carbon capture. These financial transfers pay for an undesirable – such as, environmentally-destructive – economic activity like logging or mining not to take place. Western governments who care about tropical forests not being destroyed or Western companies that need to offset their carbon emissions pay for forests elsewhere not to be cut down and carbon emissions thus not to be released. In the best of outcomes, such schemes will reduce carbon emissions and preserve forests and biodiversity. After several years of tough and protracted negotiations, Indonesia and Norway agreed in December 2012 on such a REDD+ scheme which pays for a protection area to be established abutting the Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, to create an important buffer zone around it. Investors in the Rimba Raya forest include Russia’s giant gas producer Gazprom and a large German financial institution Allianz. The project was originally supposed to start in 2010, but then stalled as the Indonesian government proposed to cut the amount of land devoted to the conservation area because an African oil palm plantation company had overlapping concessions that it was not interested in relinquishing.

REDD+ mechanisms were at the center of the stalled UN climate change negotiations in the latest November 2012 Doha round. And just like the overall climate change negotiations, they too are mired in international political disagreements. The procedure on which to base reference emission levels, i.e., the baseline from which the level of carbon emission that would take place in the absence of REDD+ is counted, is developed; but key emitters, such as Brazil, have refused to submit to international verification and monitoring procedures. In a country with deep corruption and pervasive regulation evasion such as Indonesia, credible external monitoring will be key for making REDD+ and other PES efforts effective.

A second major problem is that the lack of emissions reductions commitments from the United States, China, India, Canada, and Russia raises doubts about how and whether funding for REDD+ will be generated and at what levels. China and India are loath to commit to any emission reductions until the United States makes a move, and perhaps not even then. Nor has it been agreed as to how much of the burden and responsibility middle-income countries like Brazil and Indonesia need to share. Indonesian officials I interviewed often expressed a desire that the REDD+ is used to pay for law enforcement in the national parks and other protected areas, for example; but Indonesia is not so poor that it requires international payoffs to pay its park rangers better. Anyway, the problem often lies as much with actors outside the national park as with the rangers themselves.

And here lies one of the potential difficulties with REDD+. The payoff goes to either the national government or a local government. But surrounding the two and between the two, there are often complex webs of powerful vested economic actors. Even equitable and proportional transfers between the national government and local governments do not guarantee that local government officials will develop the muscle and wherewithal to resist corruption and coercion from powerful economic groups, particularly if those economic groups are the military and police, like in Indonesia. Nor will the money necessarily make its way into the hands of the artisanal loggers and miners. In other words, the domestic payoff transfer and internal distribution of the money and transferred resources will affect the REDD+ effectiveness as much as their international component.

Such problems with government compensation to local forest owners for preserving natural forests have been experienced even outside of the carbon schemes. If monitoring and law enforcement is poor and the local community places little intrinsic value on forest and biodiversity preservation, local communities will often collect the money and log anyway, or in other cases face invasion by logging companies from outside the community. Similarly, if payments are set too much below the value of logging the forest, even compensated owners can be tempted to participate in illegal logging while collecting no-cutting rents.[4] And making sure that the money reaches the forest-dependent communities and is not usurped by corrupt powerbrokers is often a challenge.

Another aspect of REDD+ that could have important effects is developing local capacities to better manage forests. But those better sustainable practices will once again run into local economic interests that either need to be bought via the REDD+ transfers or coerced by law enforcement to comply with regulations. What the REDD+ initiatives have already accomplished in Indonesia is to force officials in the Forestry Ministry – a notoriously corrupt institution which regards its task as making as much money out of forests as possible, rather than preserving forests and biodiversityn – to conduct much better assessments of existing forests and even publish that data. Previous self-monitoring and data collection on deforestation has been rather unreliable in Indonesia.

Critically, the price structure of the payoff schemes will be a significant determinant of their effectiveness not only for capturing carbon, but also of preserving the world’s biodiversity.[5] Surprisingly, a certain price structure could have a negative effect on the preservation of natural forests, and the failure to incorporate biodiversity considerations in forest management designs could be compounded by emerging carbon-for-forest payoff schemes. In some countries and under some circumstances, where there is strong government commitment, successful cooptation of key logging industry stakeholders, and effective law enforcement, such financial transfers can halt deforestation or even expand existing forest cover.[6] But for that to be likely, the compensation payments need to be far greater for preserving natural, and especially primary, forests than for capturing carbon by degraded forests or replanted forests or timber plantations. And these differentials – with by far the most compensation going for primary forests, smaller amounts for secondary forests, and the least for non-native monoculture plantations – need to be sufficiently great to steer government decisions toward keeping forests intact. Without such a price structure in place, with any tree accorded an equal or similar carbon-capture value, governments could be tempted to maximize profits by intensely logging their forests first and then signing up for carbon offsets for halting further deforestation, including from forests that are no longer viable for commercial logging or through biodiversity-poor reforestation and plantations. Even if the logged forest regenerates timber through replanting or natural recovery, it often cannot do so in a manner that will restore its original biodiversity. Without a far greater unit price for carbon captured by intact natural forests rather than by forest plantations and other reforested areas, the carbon schemes thus encourage the preservation of any forests – including monocultures – rather than native primary forests.[7]

International Mechanisms to Foster Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability II: Green and Other Certification

Since the 1990s, certification labeling of the legality and environmental sustainability of harvested timber or African palm oil or of the absence of conflict in the extraction of minerals has emerged as a key mechanism to suppress undesirable behavior associated with economies that cannot be fully prohibited. Certification is supposed to mitigate inherent harms and negative externalities, such as human rights violations, social strife and violent conflict, and environmental destruction. To combat illegal logging, timber certification is meant to designate that the logged and traded timber has been sourced and transported in a legal or environmentally-sound way and that illegal timber has not been mixed in with the legal timber. Ideally, such certification examines and approves the entire custody chain; the traded timber would be certified from the moment it is carefully, legally, and sustainably selected for cutting in the forest to the moment a customer buys a piece of furniture in a Western furniture store. Any gap in controls in the custody chain increases the chance that illegal timber enters the trade and is effectively laundered.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC, an independent, international NGO) certification, which tracks timber from forest to the shelf, is often considered the current gold standard of certification labels for timber. However, by the end of the 2000s, the FSC still certified only approximately 220 million acres, of which 110 million are in North America, while there are 10 billion acres of forested land on Earth.[8] Less than 2% of tropical timber was covered by FSC certification.[9] Getting certified is expensive, costing about U.S. $50,000 per concession, and customers are not always eager to absorb the higher costs.

Given the size of the trade and the complexity of certification – as wood changes many hands along trade routes and is processed into many, often minute pieces, over extensive periods of time – the reliability of the process is frequently problematic, with many opportunities for fake certificates, falsification, or timber laundering along the way. The more timber subject to certification, the more challenging it will be to maintain quality and reliable certification. When I asked a logging company representative in Samarinda about whether they were concerned about failing to obtain green certification and whether they altered their practice as a result of increasing desire for such certification in Western markets, he just laughed: “For us, it’s just another bribery item. We pay for the inspectors. And anyway, they go out for two days out of a year – how much can they see?”

Beyond the sheer volume and the previously discussed challenges of law enforcement intensity, fake documentation, and the amount of time it takes to check a sufficient amount of timber to discourage laundering and smuggling, certification schemes are also plagued by other problems: The most important one is that timber may be certified as legal, but may not be harvested sustainably and in an environmentally sensitive way. Some of the legality verification is very limited, confirming only that timber originated in a particular concession area and that the company had the necessary permits. Other legality certification can involve more rigorous evidence of compliance with harvesting regulations and other operational matters. [10] Even then sustainability may not necessarily be a part of the certification evaluation. Since most legislation mandating certification of wood and wood products, including the expanded U.S. Lacey Act and the European Union’s Timber Regulation due diligence requirements, centers on its legality, as opposed to its sustainability, suppliers have concentrated on precisely assuring timber’s legality but not necessarily sustainability. Moreover, getting a certification for sustainability takes considerably longer and is far more expensive than the legality certification.

Certification problems often start with forest management plans. Both the design and implementation of forest management are often pervaded by serious problems, even though the mere existence of such a plan can qualify the logged timber for certification. Not all forest management plans ensure sustainability and minimal environmental damage, including measures to protect biodiversity. Often forest engineers, large numbers of whom are required to design programs for all the logging operations, are incompetent and corrupt. Moreover, since natural forest regeneration often takes decades in the tropics, there is not any easy way at present to see whether the management programs are effective, and to correct policy if they are not. Thus certification does not always involve all three components: legality, timber sustainability, and biodiversity protection. Certificates are issued only for one or two components of desirable practices, with law enforcement officials and customers having no idea what exactly is being certified and whether the certified timber in fact reflects optimal practices.

In addition, consumer preferences and regulatory requirements for certified wood have given birth to some certification schemes of dubious quality. Many of these certification labels represent simple cases of “greenwashing,” i.e., illegal and unsustainable wood being certified as legal and sustainable. In other cases, major retailers – even in the United States and Western Europe where customers are overall greener and the regulatory oversight greater – have appropriated and advertized green labels, including that of FSC, without ever being certified.[11] At other times, timber and wood product suppliers have obtained FSC’s chain-of-custody certification indicating that they have adequate capacity to check their supply chains without actually handling any FSC certified timber.[12] Extensive unreliability of certification can whitewash consumer conscience and encourage greater, and undesirable, consumer demand. Large numbers of certification schemes also make law enforcement more difficult. Watching the watchdogs, or in this case certificate issuers, and establishing lists of reliable certifiers, is essential for certification to reduce illegal logging.

Critically compounding the limitations of certification is the fact that some of the most important and emerging markets, such as India and China, fundamentally do not care about corporate social responsibility or mitigating the multiple harms that various economic activities can generate. Mining company representatives I interviewed in Sulawesi, Kalimantan, and Sumatra all said how they love to sell coal to India. “The Indian companies just don’t care about anything,” the representative in Kalimantan opined. “Not any environmental issues, social conflict, nothing. It’s a pleasure dealing with them. They even don’t care about the quality of the coal. They just want more and more of it.” Clearly, to improve the effectiveness of certification, it is necessary to create certification inspectors who are fully independent and not paid by the business firms or governments seeking the particular legal, environmental, or social certification. It is also necessary to fundamentally change attitudes toward corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability in emerging markets. Not surprisingly, many Asian companies and multinationals tend to behave better at home than abroad, like in Indonesia. Indonesian logging and mining companies are hardly, however, paragons of virtue.

While critical, a regulatory framework only partially determines the effectiveness of policies. Local institutional and cultural contexts matter a great deal and can facilitate or render ineffective regulatory frameworks. The overall level of corruption and the quality of law enforcement and rule of law matter as much as the regulatory design itself. And in Indonesia they have a long way to go to improve.

As we were leaving Kutai, we stopped at a roadside shack to take some photographs of the destroyed forest. A local Dayak woman was selling various wares. While trying to talk us into buying parts of animals her father killed in the park, such as hornbill feathers, she told us that she frequently sees orangutans cross the paved highway. On either side of the road, there was little forest left – just palms as far as the eye could see. It was not clear to us where the orangutans would be going or why: Perhaps there is so little food left in the forest that even here, in a national park, they are forced to eat the insides of the African oil palms, a foraging coping mechanism that frequently puts them in conflict with people and gets them killed. While I was looking at the road and the destroyed forest, a paraphrase of the famous line from Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptical novel The Roadran though my head: Borrowed time and borrowed world and whose eyes with which to sorrow it?

[2] See also Samuel Spiegel, “Governance Institutions, Resource Rights Regimes, and the Informal Mining Sector: Regulatory Complexities in Indonesia,” World Development, 40(1), 2012: 189-205; and Gavin Hilson, “What Is Wrong with the Global Support Facility for Small-scale Mining?” Progress in Development Studies, (7)3, 2007: 235-249.

[3] For how decentralization has become excessive and distortive, see International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Defying the State,” August 30, 2012, http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/b138-indonesia-defying-the-state.pdf.

[4] For examples of such compensation policies and their shortcoming in particularly institutional and regulatory settings in China, see, for example, Forest Trends (2006): 20. For an effective, but expensive compensation scheme that increased the amount of land protected from certain kinds of environmentally-damaging land in Colorado, the United States, from just under 350,000 acres in 2000 to almost one million in 2005, see “Mountains for the Centuries,” The Economist, 382(8514): 35.

[5] For other challenges for effectively implementing REDD+, see Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Not as Easy as Falling off a Log: The Illegal Timber Trade in the Asia-Pacific Region and Possible Mitigation Strategies,” Brookings Foreign Policy Working Paper No. 5, Brookings Institution, March 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/3/illegal%20logging%20felbabbrown/03_illegal_logging_felbabbrown.

[7] For how carbon offsets support such undesirable behavior in Papua New Guinea, for example, see Colin Filer, Rodney J. Keenan, Bryant J. Allen and John R. Mcalpine, “Deforestation and forest degradation in Papua New Guinea,” Annals of Forest Science, 66 (8), December 2009: 813-25.

[8] Pervaze A. Sheikh, Illegal Logging: Background and Issues, Congressional Research Service, June 9, 2008: 5. Even the FSC is not infallible, as was revealed with respect to illegal and unsustainable timber from Laos the FSC nonetheless certified. See, for example, World Rainforest Movement, “Laos: FSC Certified Timber Is Illegal,” http://www.illegal-logging.info/item_single.php?it_id=1683&it=news; and Wright and Carlton.

[11] See, for example, Environmental Investigative Agency, Behind the Veneer: How Indonesia’s Last Rainforests Are Being Felled for Flooring, 2006, http://www.eia-international.org/cgi/reports/reports.cgi?t=template&a=117.

Yet another Western tourist – this time a 56- year-old grandmother from Britain – has become the face of drug trafficking in Indonesia. Her death sentence for smuggling 10 pounds of cocaine worth of $2.5 million in her suitcase has riveted international media. Her story – that she was coerced to smuggle the drugs in order to protect her children and grandchildren whose safety was at stake – vaguely resembles the misfortunes of Bridget Jones from the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. But so far, no miraculous Mark Darcy has landed to liberate her from prison and death row. Rather, human rights groups have criticized the British government for not doing enough to provide an adequate legal defense for Ms. Lindsay Sandiford. But as unfortunate as her story is, and even as it is but one in a long line of Western tourists dramatically apprehended and punished for drug trafficking in Southeast Asia, it is to a great extent a distraction from the drug trafficking problems and trends that Indonesia faces.

Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has for decades applied extremely harsh penalties for drug trafficking and drug use. Like in Ms. Sandiford’s case, Indonesian law punishes drug smuggling with the death penalty, or at least a decades-long imprisonment. Merely getting caught smoking a joint can land one in jail for several years. As with elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such harsh penalties have done little to decrease drug trafficking in Indonesia.

In fact, both drug use and drug trafficking appear to have increased in the country. In 2011, Indonesia’s user population was estimated to be approximately 4.1 million, or 1.6 percent of Indonesia’s total population. In 2009, that user population was believed to be only 500,000.[1] If the estimates are equally correct – or more precisely make the same (under)estimation mistakes for both years – that would be an astounding eight-fold increase in three years. The expansion of Indonesia’s middle class, its growing purchasing power underpinned by the country’s economic boom fueled by its primary commodity exploitation and resulting GDP growth rates of over six percent, the stress of increasing inequality, and the democratization and political opening of the post-1998 era are all the kinds of triggers that can increase illicit drug consumption. Just like in China, Indonesians have been developing a taste for methamphetamines, ecstasy, heroin, and ketamine.

If the number of drug seizures, which can be signs of both greater drug flows and greater law enforcement effectiveness, are any indication, trafficking too seems to be increasing. Drug shipments intercepted at the Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, arguably the most patrolled and monitored port of entry into the country, have risen from 16 in 2008 to 63 in 2010 and 52 in 2011.[2] With over 18,000 islands and a coastline of over 54 thousand kilometers, the Indonesian archipelago offers the perfect geography for smuggling, never mind how under-resourced and notoriously corrupt the Indonesian law enforcement apparatus is, and how weak and bribery-susceptible the justice system. Even with much less corruption in Indonesia – as critical and pivotal an achievement as that would be – and far greater resources devoted to counternarcotics enforcement, Indonesia would still be the trafficker’s paradise. Particularly since for several years now, prices of illicit drugs in Indonesia are believed to have remained higher than elsewhere in Southeast Asia.[3]

With the poor rule of law and the pervasive and deeply-ingrained corruption that exists in the country, Indonesia’s law enforcement and military officials, even more so than their counterparts elsewhere in the world, are perfectly positioned to dominate Indonesia’s drug trade. The dramatic court showcases of Western tourists smuggling drugs aside, examples of military and law enforcement complicity in drug trafficking abound. Rather laughably, officials at one of Indonesia’s high-security prisons, for example, have been caught cooking meth and supplying both the prison and the nearby city.[4] According to U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, Indonesian military commanders in West Papua have participated in all manner of smuggling, including drug and timber trafficking across the border with Papua New Guinea.[5]

Importantly, however, Indonesia is no longer just a transit country for illicit drugs heading to Australia, China, and Japan, but is also increasingly a destination country. It is also a hot and rapidly expanding meth production center. Since cold medications containing pseudoephedrine are sold in Indonesia without prescription or any registration required, as they used to be in the United States until the early 2000s, cooking meth is easy. A major producer of methamphetamines itself, China supplies the pseudoephedrine both to Indonesia’s pharmaceutical industry and illicit market in a rather unregulated and unmonitored manner.

Ever more, the meth cooks in Indonesia are native, instead of the Dutch who would arrive in their former colony to produce the methamphetamines. Indeed, one of the most important developments in the Indonesian drug market is the growth of Indonesia’s domestic production capacity. The expansion of the synthetic drugs market and the domestication of production have potentially large transformative effects on Indonesia’s landscape of organized crime. Western tourists may well be those most visibly apprehended in Indonesia, but the formation of powerful Indonesian drug-trafficking groups can radically transform the structure and characteristics of the Indonesian criminal market. The emergence of far more powerful and vertically-integrated drug-trafficking groups could alter the market’s proclivity toward violence. So far, it has been a rather peaceful market. It could also change the relationship between the Indonesian state, military and law enforcement officials, and politicians on the one hand and Indonesia’s criminal gangs on the other – a complex web described in Indonesia Field Report I on urban gangs. With far greater profits at stake than in the previous drugs-for-tourists deals, a large meth market is also bound to attract the attention of powerful organized crime groups from other Southeast Asian countries and China, potentially triggering turf wars over the market and once again fundamentally altering the relationship between state and crime in Indonesia. Already, members of Malaysian drug syndicates attempting to smuggle drugs are caught with increasing frequency at Jakarta’s airport.[6]

Although the growing meth market is potentially radically transformative of Indonesia’s criminal market and is certainly highly lucrative, Indonesia is hardly a newcomer to the drug trade. Along with Cambodia, the Philippines, and India, Indonesia has long been a significant producer of cannabis. The Aceh region in Sumatra has been one of the primary cultivation areas, with the pot profits funding Acehnese secessionists and Indonesian jihadists as well as poor farmers.

Historically, various foreign as well as domestic political actors profited from the illicit and licit drug trade in Indonesia. Opium poppy used to be cultivated in Borneo and other islands of the archipelago during the 19th century. At the turn of the 20th century, the Dutch imported opium from British India, Persia, and Turkey and sold it in legal government-sponsored shops and smoking outfits as well as to pharmaceutical companies. The Japanese occupation forces taxed the opium-processing factories as did Sukarno’s pro-independence forces who took over the factories from the Japanese. After the end of World War II, the pro-independence parallel government smuggled out large quantities of illegal opium to Singapore to generate revenues to fight the Dutch.[7]

More surprisingly, coca, the quintessential Latin American drug-producing plant, also used to be cultivated in Indonesia. During the 1870s, a Javanese coca cultivar was developed with leaves containing about 1.5 percent cocaine, a much higher potency than the South American coca varieties had at that time. Foreign sales of coca leaves subsequently boomed, with over 1,000 tons of leaves exported to Amsterdam for processing into cocaine in 1912. By 1920, coca exports had increased to 1,600 tons, equivalent to 25 tons of cocaine and surpassing the level of cultivation in Peru and Bolivia during that period.[8] As attitudes toward cocaine use began to change during the 1930s and the European market shrank, Indonesia’s coca cultivation and exports dwindled. By 1935, coca leaf exports from Java fell to less than 10 percent of peak production, and after a few years coca cultivation in Indonesia rather precipitously stopped. The expansion of the global illicit trade in cocaine after the 1970s fueled a massive coca cultivation expansion in the Andes, yet Indonesia’s cultivation has not returned. But now, the illicit market in synthetic drugs has robustly taken off.

Of the various smugglers I was able to interview in Indonesia during my research there in the fall of 2012, none were as reticent as the drug smugglers. Those who organized illegal mining and logging bragged with pride about their capacity to bribe Indonesian authorities – see Indonesia Field Trip Report III on illegal logging and mining. Wildlife poachers and traffickers exhibited with glee, and without any remorse, the animals they slaughtered – see Indonesia Field Trip Report IV on wildlife trafficking. But those who supposedly could talk about local drug peddling and trafficking were tight-lipped, nervously looking over their shoulders and denying any knowledge. The differential penalties – very harsh for drug trafficking and minimal for illegal logging, mining, and wildlife trafficking – may not have reduced the intensity of illicit drug flows in Indonesia, but they have silenced the participants in the illegal drug trade. And yet one needs to wonder not only about the readiness of Indonesia’s law enforcement to cope with the potential growth and power of Indonesia drug trafficking groups, but also about its priorities. The illicit drug trade often generates the most international opprobrium; yet it is the illicit as well as licit destruction of Indonesia’s biodiversity that is most pressing and requires urgent attention from the Indonesian government and law enforcement. After all, the drug trade is in renewable, nondepletable resources -- unlike Indonesia’s forests and unique species that are being overexploited and are disappearing at breakneck speed. Once they are gone, there is no way of bringing them back. Meth will be cooked and consumed decades from now. The only question is who will control the meth market and what kind of political power the market will generate.

[3] Interview with counternarcotics officials, Jakarta, October 2012. Given Indonesia’s rather limited and varied efforts to collect systematic drug data as well as frequent short-term fluctuations in drug prices, such assessments need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Authors

Yet another Western tourist – this time a 56- year-old grandmother from Britain – has become the face of drug trafficking in Indonesia. Her death sentence for smuggling 10 pounds of cocaine worth of $2.5 million in her suitcase has riveted international media. Her story – that she was coerced to smuggle the drugs in order to protect her children and grandchildren whose safety was at stake – vaguely resembles the misfortunes of Bridget Jones from the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. But so far, no miraculous Mark Darcy has landed to liberate her from prison and death row. Rather, human rights groups have criticized the British government for not doing enough to provide an adequate legal defense for Ms. Lindsay Sandiford. But as unfortunate as her story is, and even as it is but one in a long line of Western tourists dramatically apprehended and punished for drug trafficking in Southeast Asia, it is to a great extent a distraction from the drug trafficking problems and trends that Indonesia faces.

Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has for decades applied extremely harsh penalties for drug trafficking and drug use. Like in Ms. Sandiford’s case, Indonesian law punishes drug smuggling with the death penalty, or at least a decades-long imprisonment. Merely getting caught smoking a joint can land one in jail for several years. As with elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such harsh penalties have done little to decrease drug trafficking in Indonesia.

In fact, both drug use and drug trafficking appear to have increased in the country. In 2011, Indonesia’s user population was estimated to be approximately 4.1 million, or 1.6 percent of Indonesia’s total population. In 2009, that user population was believed to be only 500,000.[1] If the estimates are equally correct – or more precisely make the same (under)estimation mistakes for both years – that would be an astounding eight-fold increase in three years. The expansion of Indonesia’s middle class, its growing purchasing power underpinned by the country’s economic boom fueled by its primary commodity exploitation and resulting GDP growth rates of over six percent, the stress of increasing inequality, and the democratization and political opening of the post-1998 era are all the kinds of triggers that can increase illicit drug consumption. Just like in China, Indonesians have been developing a taste for methamphetamines, ecstasy, heroin, and ketamine.

If the number of drug seizures, which can be signs of both greater drug flows and greater law enforcement effectiveness, are any indication, trafficking too seems to be increasing. Drug shipments intercepted at the Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, arguably the most patrolled and monitored port of entry into the country, have risen from 16 in 2008 to 63 in 2010 and 52 in 2011.[2] With over 18,000 islands and a coastline of over 54 thousand kilometers, the Indonesian archipelago offers the perfect geography for smuggling, never mind how under-resourced and notoriously corrupt the Indonesian law enforcement apparatus is, and how weak and bribery-susceptible the justice system. Even with much less corruption in Indonesia – as critical and pivotal an achievement as that would be – and far greater resources devoted to counternarcotics enforcement, Indonesia would still be the trafficker’s paradise. Particularly since for several years now, prices of illicit drugs in Indonesia are believed to have remained higher than elsewhere in Southeast Asia.[3]

With the poor rule of law and the pervasive and deeply-ingrained corruption that exists in the country, Indonesia’s law enforcement and military officials, even more so than their counterparts elsewhere in the world, are perfectly positioned to dominate Indonesia’s drug trade. The dramatic court showcases of Western tourists smuggling drugs aside, examples of military and law enforcement complicity in drug trafficking abound. Rather laughably, officials at one of Indonesia’s high-security prisons, for example, have been caught cooking meth and supplying both the prison and the nearby city.[4] According to U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, Indonesian military commanders in West Papua have participated in all manner of smuggling, including drug and timber trafficking across the border with Papua New Guinea.[5]

Importantly, however, Indonesia is no longer just a transit country for illicit drugs heading to Australia, China, and Japan, but is also increasingly a destination country. It is also a hot and rapidly expanding meth production center. Since cold medications containing pseudoephedrine are sold in Indonesia without prescription or any registration required, as they used to be in the United States until the early 2000s, cooking meth is easy. A major producer of methamphetamines itself, China supplies the pseudoephedrine both to Indonesia’s pharmaceutical industry and illicit market in a rather unregulated and unmonitored manner.

Ever more, the meth cooks in Indonesia are native, instead of the Dutch who would arrive in their former colony to produce the methamphetamines. Indeed, one of the most important developments in the Indonesian drug market is the growth of Indonesia’s domestic production capacity. The expansion of the synthetic drugs market and the domestication of production have potentially large transformative effects on Indonesia’s landscape of organized crime. Western tourists may well be those most visibly apprehended in Indonesia, but the formation of powerful Indonesian drug-trafficking groups can radically transform the structure and characteristics of the Indonesian criminal market. The emergence of far more powerful and vertically-integrated drug-trafficking groups could alter the market’s proclivity toward violence. So far, it has been a rather peaceful market. It could also change the relationship between the Indonesian state, military and law enforcement officials, and politicians on the one hand and Indonesia’s criminal gangs on the other – a complex web described in Indonesia Field Report I on urban gangs. With far greater profits at stake than in the previous drugs-for-tourists deals, a large meth market is also bound to attract the attention of powerful organized crime groups from other Southeast Asian countries and China, potentially triggering turf wars over the market and once again fundamentally altering the relationship between state and crime in Indonesia. Already, members of Malaysian drug syndicates attempting to smuggle drugs are caught with increasing frequency at Jakarta’s airport.[6]

Although the growing meth market is potentially radically transformative of Indonesia’s criminal market and is certainly highly lucrative, Indonesia is hardly a newcomer to the drug trade. Along with Cambodia, the Philippines, and India, Indonesia has long been a significant producer of cannabis. The Aceh region in Sumatra has been one of the primary cultivation areas, with the pot profits funding Acehnese secessionists and Indonesian jihadists as well as poor farmers.

Historically, various foreign as well as domestic political actors profited from the illicit and licit drug trade in Indonesia. Opium poppy used to be cultivated in Borneo and other islands of the archipelago during the 19th century. At the turn of the 20th century, the Dutch imported opium from British India, Persia, and Turkey and sold it in legal government-sponsored shops and smoking outfits as well as to pharmaceutical companies. The Japanese occupation forces taxed the opium-processing factories as did Sukarno’s pro-independence forces who took over the factories from the Japanese. After the end of World War II, the pro-independence parallel government smuggled out large quantities of illegal opium to Singapore to generate revenues to fight the Dutch.[7]

More surprisingly, coca, the quintessential Latin American drug-producing plant, also used to be cultivated in Indonesia. During the 1870s, a Javanese coca cultivar was developed with leaves containing about 1.5 percent cocaine, a much higher potency than the South American coca varieties had at that time. Foreign sales of coca leaves subsequently boomed, with over 1,000 tons of leaves exported to Amsterdam for processing into cocaine in 1912. By 1920, coca exports had increased to 1,600 tons, equivalent to 25 tons of cocaine and surpassing the level of cultivation in Peru and Bolivia during that period.[8] As attitudes toward cocaine use began to change during the 1930s and the European market shrank, Indonesia’s coca cultivation and exports dwindled. By 1935, coca leaf exports from Java fell to less than 10 percent of peak production, and after a few years coca cultivation in Indonesia rather precipitously stopped. The expansion of the global illicit trade in cocaine after the 1970s fueled a massive coca cultivation expansion in the Andes, yet Indonesia’s cultivation has not returned. But now, the illicit market in synthetic drugs has robustly taken off.

Of the various smugglers I was able to interview in Indonesia during my research there in the fall of 2012, none were as reticent as the drug smugglers. Those who organized illegal mining and logging bragged with pride about their capacity to bribe Indonesian authorities – see Indonesia Field Trip Report III on illegal logging and mining. Wildlife poachers and traffickers exhibited with glee, and without any remorse, the animals they slaughtered – see Indonesia Field Trip Report IV on wildlife trafficking. But those who supposedly could talk about local drug peddling and trafficking were tight-lipped, nervously looking over their shoulders and denying any knowledge. The differential penalties – very harsh for drug trafficking and minimal for illegal logging, mining, and wildlife trafficking – may not have reduced the intensity of illicit drug flows in Indonesia, but they have silenced the participants in the illegal drug trade. And yet one needs to wonder not only about the readiness of Indonesia’s law enforcement to cope with the potential growth and power of Indonesia drug trafficking groups, but also about its priorities. The illicit drug trade often generates the most international opprobrium; yet it is the illicit as well as licit destruction of Indonesia’s biodiversity that is most pressing and requires urgent attention from the Indonesian government and law enforcement. After all, the drug trade is in renewable, nondepletable resources -- unlike Indonesia’s forests and unique species that are being overexploited and are disappearing at breakneck speed. Once they are gone, there is no way of bringing them back. Meth will be cooked and consumed decades from now. The only question is who will control the meth market and what kind of political power the market will generate.

[3] Interview with counternarcotics officials, Jakarta, October 2012. Given Indonesia’s rather limited and varied efforts to collect systematic drug data as well as frequent short-term fluctuations in drug prices, such assessments need to be taken with a grain of salt.